In conversation with

Exordium

The Strangeness of the Discipline

A Good Scientific Conversation

Suspicion and Derision in Political Life

Self-assured economists can cope with the derision of culturalists and everyday people. It would be more fun to be respected and admired but let's be honest, do dentists, accountants, engineers, and managers fare that much better? I should think that economics is more intellectually appealing than dentistry and accounting, and would lend itself for better conversation at the dinner table, but I have learned otherwise. I have not given up on economics sparking day-to-day lay conversations, but there is much to be understood before that happens.

How much more difficult it is to accept the suspicion and indifference that economists receive in politics. After all, a major portion of the economist's work is designed to affect policy and the understanding of government systems is a cornerstone of economic thought. The disparagement of the input of economists is not necessarily visible: economists are regularly called in to advise policy makers, the American president has a Council of Economic Advisors, European governments are backed by economic research institutions, and economists are prominent in central banks. Even so, economic advice is almost never implemented straightaway and it is often dismissed. Mockery is not uncommon. Exasperated with economists who intervened with the remark, "On the other hand, ..." Harry Truman once exclaimed, "Give me a one-handed economist!"

Academic economists complain about their limited roles in public debate. The widely acclaimed Paul Krugman expresses his frustration that the "role of the economist who cares about policy can be dispiriting: one may spend years devising sophisticated theories or carefully testing ideas against the evidence, then find that politicians turn again and again to ideas that you thought had been discredited decades or even centuries ago, or make statements that are flatly contradicted by the facts" (1994, p. 292). As an academic economist with experience in politics in the Joint Committee on Taxation, Alan Auerbach is well-qualified to observe: (a) the "shorter time horizon" in Washington compared to academia, "with ideas being raised and discarded with more frequency than the occasional visits to Washington during my existence," (b) the important role of lawyers, and (c) the disproportionate amount of time spent on issues that affect specific taxpayers versus the broader issues that concern an academic economist (1992, p. 239). Stuart Eizenstat, who served as advisor to President Carter, complains that economists and politicians "too frequently are like ships passing in the night, neither understanding the needs of the other" (1992, p. 71).

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Even allowing that these observations are only partially true, they make for a puzzling phenomenon. Economics is a discipline that boasts of its lofty reign as the queen of social sciences, draws a million undergraduates to its introductory courses at American colleges every year (of which 30,000 choose it as their major), and counts 130,000 practitioners in the U.S. alone. Ph.D.'s number 17,500, with many serving as presidents (Mexico), cabinet ministers, business leaders, and IMF and World Bank bureaucrats. Each year, a member of this community is awarded a Nobel Prize, lending the discipline scientific authenticity. Yet its authority in political debate is tainted by suspicion and its policy decision-making questioned.