[vladislav]

Agreed. There's a huge difference between mathematical beauty in theoretical physics and in economics, the latter not really being on the radar in modern math. The author is conflating mathematical beauty with the "fancy math" effect of being able to easily publish papers in fields that aren't very mathematical just by having equations as part of the analysis. It's not like economists have found some amazingly beautiful theory (by modern math standards), they just use math to promote/legitimize their work.