Penn Professors on Writing in Economics

Professor George Mailath

About the Professor

Professor Mailath is Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. A native of Australia, Professor Mailath earned his undergraduate degree at the Australian National University in 1980. He obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University, and then joined the faculty at University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor in 1985, was promoted to associate professor in 1992, professor in 1995, and was appointed the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor in the Social Sciences in 1998. He was named the Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences in 2003. In 2006-2007, Professor Mailath was Alfred Cowles Professor of Economics at Yale University. In the Department of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Mailath has served as director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies, and chair of the department. His research interests include pricing, noncooperative game theory, evolutionary game theory, repeated games, social norms, and the foundations of reputations.

Important Criteria for Student Writing

"Any decent Economics writing is going to have some math in it."

"Good writing in particular is not just about English, but its an appropriate integration of the mathematics into the verbal description."

Personal Writing Process

For Professor Mailath, the writing and research activities are inseparable. Professor Mailath spends time trying to sort out ideas, and writing helps "clarify the ideas." Writing a paper takes multiple drafts and can take from a few weeks to five years.

Professor Mailath submits drafts to peer reviewed journals, where his articles are read by referees that will advise to revise, resubmit, or reject. "It all depends whether it is a good idea or not. Everyone thinks that everything they write is brilliant. However, sometimes you are right, and sometimes you are wrong, but the referees are usually pretty good about separating out good work from bad work."

Links

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Other Professors in Economics:
Professor Jere Behrman
Professor Rebecca Stein
Professor Petra Todd