ERWISCHT. At Harvard, economics professors Andrei Shleifer and Martin Weitzman have been reduced in rank to professor. There's a lot to mull over in the latest from David Warsh.

The result today is that Harvard economics' considerable luster is bedimmed by a light gray curse. (There are other problems, too; the department's stewardship of its Quarterly Journal of Economics has come under fire in the profession for intellectual self-dealing. Shleifer edited for a decade, and helped choose the current editors, Robert Barro, Lawrence Katz and Edward Glaeser.) On the issue of Shleifer's standing, the department is deeply riven.

Some, including Claudia Goldin, David Laibson, Katz and Glaeser have been outspoken in defense of his academic stature. Others, including Jorgenson (now a high-ranking university professor) and N. Gregory Mankiw (the former George W. Bush adviser who teaches Harvard's introductory economics course), have grumbled over the years about the university's administration, the government and the press, but only behind the scenes. A sizeable faction of the 71-member department, perhaps even a slight majority, deplore the Russia scandal in varying degrees, but prefer not to speak out.

The Truck and Barter post identifies the Quote of the Day, also in Mr Warsh's column.

Small gestures, cunningly contrived, can have big effects. The price of not doing the right thing is going up as well.