Does blogging help one’s professional reputation as an economist?

From David McKenzie, there are more quantitative results:

In all three columns we see that, conditional on their RePEc rank, regular blogging is strongly and significantly associated with being more likely to be viewed as a favorite economist. Blogging has the same size impact as being in the top 50 of RePEc rankings for the under 60 economists, and a larger impact for the over 60 economists.

You will find the details and regressions at the link.  One obvious question, of course, is how the average returns relate to the marginal returns.  If David’s numbers reflect the reality, and I believe they do, why do not more economists blog?  I believe it is because they can’t, at least not without embarrassing themselves rather quickly, even if they are smart and very good economists.  It’s simply a different set of skills.  The underlying cognitive model here still needs to be worked out, but it is not a story of smooth continuity.

By the way, do note his plea at the end:

We would love to hear from readers, bloggers, and policy makers of other examples where blog posts have changed policy – particularly cases which have involved economic analysis, rather than just reporting.