The year is 2136 and the museum of economics has recently opened. Among the notable items in the collection are the bust of Friedman from Chicago; three Heckman RAs properly mummified to serve him in the afterlife; a copy of Stata 1 on floppy disk; and a mysteriously extractive KFC bucket. However, none of these items are bringing as much attention as a certain desk object—the stapler of Dupas. This famed object thought to be lost when lent to a mysogynistic graduate student back in the early 21st century has recently resurfaced. Readily recognized by the telltale signs of frequent use and abuse, the discovery of this object has brought renewed energy to the economics community. Rumored to bring causal identification to mere observational and even anecdotal studies, this holy grail of economics will allow economists to go back to answering the important questions, such as gender and racial equality. Though recent RCT evidence made available by advances in surgical techniques show that randomly assigning sex and race have no impact on outcomes, these studies have been discredited by their lack of conformity to the communities priors. The hope is the stapler will help economists produce the right answer.
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