Photos & Words

When I was CEA chair, I sent the following guidelines to my staff as they started drafting the Economic Report of the President. A friend recently emailed me a copy, and I thought I would share them with blog readers. They are good rules of thumb, especially for economists writing for a general audience. ERP Writing Guidelines

“As an economist in good standing, I am quite capable of writing things nobody can read. Indeed, unreadable writing – my own and others’ – played a key role in helping me arrive at the views presented here [i.e. in this book]. But what the world needs now is informed action; and to get that kind of action, ideas must be presented in a way that is accessible to concerned people at large, not just […]