So this from Slate has
nothing to do with law firms, but it’s too delicious an economic commentary
to pass up. Asking, "What is economics, anyway?," the
piece proceeds to analyze (and largely debunk) a sinister theory first
put forth 15 years ago by Amartya Sen that there were 100-million "missing
women" in Asia compared to what one would expect if boys and girls
were born in equal numbers. And Sen darkly insinuated that
this was attributable to the forces of misogyny in general, including
female infanticide and even forced export of prostitutes. For want of
a more convincing explanation, this has remained accepted, if still lore.
Comes
now another economist to put forth a different, and innocent explanation.
One’s human reaction is primarily relief that an alleged pattern of
atrocities is evidently no such thing; the reaction of homo economicus is
to be reminded of the uses, and abuses, of statistics.
