Download: PDF | EPUB There’s an old joke that economics is too important to be left to economists. In the same vein, I think rich people are too important to be left to the self-help industry. Yes, the popular appeal of you-can-get-rich-too books is obvious. But what’s not obvious is why so few social scientists study wealth. ¹ Clearly, the public thirsts for serious inquiries about the rich.

There is an exciting side of blogging that I want to explore here. Blogging can tell the story behind research. This is something you don’t get in journals. Most scientific articles obey a formula that goes like this: Here is the question I asked. Here is how I answered the question. Here is what I found. This formula makes the article easy to read, since we know what to expect.