http://econjeff.blogspot.com/2011/12/chronicle-of-not-knowing-what-you-are.html
In which EconJeff rants about ill-informed economics naysayers
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http://econjeff.blogspot.com/2011/12/chronicle-of-not-knowing-what-you-are.html
stop trolling for your blog here
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While I don't know this blog, the article he's referring to is really bad. It's the typical "economists believe that markets operate perfectly and government should do nothing" straw man. It implies that we never study any market failures, info asymmetries, etc. Therefore the only alternative is the heterodox approach. (I'm not even knocking the heterodox work here, just saying that it is not the ONLY alternative to the extreme free market view.)
The article is given a prominant position in the CHE site and has gotten quite a few comments about "those stupid economists."
There's a lot to criticize in our profession; I just wish people would stop criticizing all of us for views that are only held by a minority.
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EL had a similar rant about neo-liberalism churches and anti-globalization wackos. http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2010/03/neoliberalism-and-church.html
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EconJeff did a poor job of explaining how it is that the "naysayers" cited by him do not know what they are talking about. Some of those associated with INET most definitely know what they are talking about, such as Stiglitz and Akerlof and some others. Maybe Marglin is out on a limb, but not so much some of the others.
And EL's post is only about churches ranting about "neoliberalism," irrelevant to this post. Don't overblow your own contributions, EL. We know you like to self-advertise here.
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Even if we agree that academic economics doesnt have an intrinsic bias towards free markets that goes beyond what is really justifiable (which is itself dubious enough), the real problem is undergrad teaching. 95% of people taking econ classes wont go on to grad school - they will go out and get jobs in the business world, politics, etc. For them to be taught only simplistic models where the free market has no problems, where people are perfectly rational, etc, is a total disgrace and without a doubt socially damaging.
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What alternative do you propose?
Even if we agree that academic economics doesnt have an intrinsic bias towards free markets that goes beyond what is really justifiable (which is itself dubious enough), the real problem is undergrad teaching. 95% of people taking econ classes wont go on to grad school - they will go out and get jobs in the business world, politics, etc. For them to be taught only simplistic models where the free market has no problems, where people are perfectly rational, etc, is a total disgrace and without a doubt socially damaging.
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More stressing that the basic models theyre being taught are only a first approximation and usually fail to describe reality (compare to how physics is taught - physicists are usually honest when theyre simplifying, economics arent). Also a few more history of economics classes and more focus on understanding the assumptions of the subject rather than just learning how to do maths (economics is probably the most unreflective subject in academia and this is part of the problem - compare to the field of statistics where people are constantly arguing over the philosophy of the subject and these get published in top journals). Finally you could maybe require students take a module which tries to give a (math-lite) overview of some trends in the economics literature and the limitations of simple models
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Even if we agree that academic economics doesnt have an intrinsic bias towards free markets that goes beyond what is really justifiable (which is itself dubious enough), the real problem is undergrad teaching. 95% of people taking econ classes wont go on to grad school - they will go out and get jobs in the business world, politics, etc. For them to be taught only simplistic models where the free market has no problems, where people are perfectly rational, etc, is a total disgrace and without a doubt socially damaging.
What econ classes teach only models where the free market has no problems? When I've taught principles-level classes, we've spent quite a bit of time on externalities and imperfect competition. Same with intermediate-level classes, but add asymmetric information to that list.
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I agree completely with 45db. Every principles class I have ever taught or seen someone else teach only starts with the perfect competition model and then spends at least half the course on imperfect competition, externalities, public goods, informatio asymetries and other market failures.
It's also possible to at least acknowledge the psychological issues. We use a model of human behavior which assumes that people are motivated by trying to maximize utility subject their budget constraint. Does that explain ALL human behavior? Of course not. But it helps study a lot of situations where it works pretty well.
So the 95% of students who never take another econ class get a much more balanced view than this article implies.
Thats why articles like this one irk me so much.
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The problem is that the heterodox economists are responsible for setting up that straw man. They keep telling everyone (reporters, students, and non-economists in general) that mainstream economics assumes that the market is perfect. I don't know if heterodox economists simply don't understand mainstream economics or if they're deliberately lying about it to inflate the importance of their own work, but the result is that they're actively misleading the public about what economics is.