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- Dec 11, 2011
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Academic Knowledge About Economic Policy Is Not Just Another Opinion
by Simon Wren-Lewis on 13 February 2018 @sjwrenlewis
Does the financial crisis reveal that economists are at the leeches and mercury stage of their subject, and as a result policy makers and the public have every right to ignore what they say? Does the fact that economists working in finance failed to recognise the prospect of a systemic crisis, and that macroeconomists both took finance for granted and as a result failed to investigate financial-real links, mean that we should ignore what economists say when it comes to Brexit?
Speaking for my own subject, I think the financial crisis does raise serious questions about the methodology macroeconomists rely on, as I have explained at length elsewhere. But does it mean that everything macroeconomists have learnt in the last 80 years is virtually worthless, or at least no better than the opinion of the average politician? Why don’t we look at what has happened since the financial crisis.
Of course we do not condemn engineering science when a new bridge wobbles or an oilrig fails, and we do not say that all medical science is nonsense when medics get things wrong, as they frequently do. But with economics, there are too many people who either want to replace the mainstream with their own school, or who like Rees-Mogg want to discredit economics because they suggest his preferred policy is harmful. As a result, whenever economics does make mistakes, as it will, there will be plenty of people around who want to bury the whole discipline. But when you look at all the evidence and not just one observation, as economists are trained to do, you find that you are better off following the advice of academic economists when it comes to economic policy than anyone else.
by Simon Wren-Lewis on 13 February 2018 @sjwrenlewis
Does the financial crisis reveal that economists are at the leeches and mercury stage of their subject, and as a result policy makers and the public have every right to ignore what they say? Does the fact that economists working in finance failed to recognise the prospect of a systemic crisis, and that macroeconomists both took finance for granted and as a result failed to investigate financial-real links, mean that we should ignore what economists say when it comes to Brexit?
Speaking for my own subject, I think the financial crisis does raise serious questions about the methodology macroeconomists rely on, as I have explained at length elsewhere. But does it mean that everything macroeconomists have learnt in the last 80 years is virtually worthless, or at least no better than the opinion of the average politician? Why don’t we look at what has happened since the financial crisis.
Of course we do not condemn engineering science when a new bridge wobbles or an oilrig fails, and we do not say that all medical science is nonsense when medics get things wrong, as they frequently do. But with economics, there are too many people who either want to replace the mainstream with their own school, or who like Rees-Mogg want to discredit economics because they suggest his preferred policy is harmful. As a result, whenever economics does make mistakes, as it will, there will be plenty of people around who want to bury the whole discipline. But when you look at all the evidence and not just one observation, as economists are trained to do, you find that you are better off following the advice of academic economists when it comes to economic policy than anyone else.