The great Ariel Rubinstein has a review of my book Economics Rules in the latest issue of the Journal of Economic Literature. It is a fun review ��� gratifying for me because Ariel agrees with many of my arguments ��� and it has a deeply personal, even emotional, feel to it. Ariel feels strongly about the turn the profession has taken, and agree or not, the essay makes for a very interesting read.

The review took me back to my graduate-student days at Princeton. The place had a very strong crop of theorists among the graduate students, and I used to hang out with them a lot. I am not sure quite why, since what I did was very different from what they did. But they were the most fun bunch in Princeton at the time. I have fun memories of many a drunken night at the Annex ��� the student bar long since gone.

I remember distinctly our contrasting attitudes to Economics. The theorists had it all together; they knew what they were doing and had few questions about methods or approach. By contrast, I was full of doubt and uncertainty: What was I doing in Economics? Did Economics really help answer any of the big questions? How would we know?

At one of our gatherings, I tried to voice some concerns about economic methodology. One of the theorists impatiently brushed me off. ���Why do you bother with methodology,��� he asked. ���It���s a waste of time. Do your work.���  I tried to convince him that these were interesting and important questions. ���Maybe so,��� he said. ���But if any important result comes out of it, someone will tell us and we will know.���

Ariel is evidently a different kind of theorist. He cares about method and doesn���t think we should leave it to just methodologists or philosophers of science. Do read his Economics Fables.