> Researchers are incentivized to write papers that seem impressive (and intimidating) rather than clear and intuitive.

Ah, a fellow economist lol. Lack of clarity is a strategic advantage because (1) (as you said) it looks impressive and (2) it's hard to validate that it's correct.

So many papers contain such elementary statistics mistakes such as survivorship bias, e.g. 'returns to education' is almost exclusively measured by asking individuals who graduated (on average 50% of enrolled students don't) and respond back to surveys (good chance of bias).

Pubs are how you get jobs. It's not about science anymore, it's about navigating bureaucracy for an elite job.