Re: [Pen-l] The economics professions

[Laurent GUERBY <laurent@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2009-01-14 at 15:39 -0800, David B. Shemano wrote:
> Laurent Guerby writes:
> 
> >> Why do you think economists are devoted to understanding our economy?
> >> 
> >> If they're rational and smart they know that economics has no
> >> predictive power whatsoever so they will instead sell their current
> >> influence on politicians to interest groups who pay the highest price.
> 
> Why do you think individuals go into academia and spend their time on
> a topic creating models, teaching undergraduates, writing articles?  

Academia is not uniform. I'm arguing that economists in academia have
different incentives than physicists because economy and physics don't
have *at all* the same status in society.

Not much different from what I stated here is some analysis by Dean
Baker:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=12&year=2008&base_name=apply_economics_to_economists

> I have the feeling that you (and others on this list) are buying into
> the notion that people who advocate ideas they agree with have good
> motivations and people who advocate ideas they disagree with have bad
> motivations.  I believe such assumptions are a fallacy.

Ad hominen.

> >> Overall government official incentives are less skewed than economists
> >> incentives, so more of them will have some care for the general
> >> interest.
> 
> I truly believe there is no theoretical or empirical support for your
> statement and it is entirely counterintuitive.  If the goal is truth
> or even the "general interest", why would an academic, protected by
> academic freedom with no pecuniary or other interest in the outcome of
> a prediction, have worse incentives than a government official, who is
> subject to the multitude of competing political interests?

"no pecuniary or other interest" for an economist? Are you really
thinking what you wrote?

I'm curious about an experiment: try to invite for a talk in your
average edu institution a top economist and a top physicist and compare
conditions.

Laurent


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