A Think Tank Counterexample
From Will Wilkinson:
In the nine months I've been at Cato I've written a piece on evolutionary psychology & capitalism; a long paper that is, I believe, the only work on social security to discuss at length Rawlsian standards of public reason; a review of Douglass North's latest book, focusing on his philosophy of mind; and now I'm working on a long methodological critique of work that attempts to bend happiness research toward paternalist conclusions. Now, I don't know which donors in particular are demanding my somewhat recondite products, but my supervisors seem to think that they're worthwhile, even if over the head of most donors and not exactly talk-radio fodder. Yes, I have written some op-eds, in which I attempted to advance some serious points. To my chagrin, no one has asked me to be on TV. But I spend most of my time reading the latest research on happiness and behavioral economics, and writing what I hope will be an original and intellectually rigorous paper. I spent much of my time at Mercatus synthesizing the views of Nobel Prize winners into reports on institutions and economic development for USAID subcontractors.
Will was hired at Cato by Brink Lindsey, whose work I greatly admire, as part of an initiative to build long-term (i.e., non-news cycle) intellectual research there. One of the good things about think tanks is that they do have nooks and crannies for this sort of work. I wish there were more incentive for them to brag about it.