The venerable
Economist magazine must be feeling at least a little bit tarnished after the heavy (and well-deserved) criticism that has been directed toward the profession that they have represented since 1843 though, admittedly, they cover much more than economics.
In this
report, they offer up a heavy dose of introspection:
What went wrong with economics
OF ALL the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself. A few years ago, the dismal science was being acclaimed as a way of explaining ever more forms of human behaviour, from drug-dealing to sumo-wrestling. Wall Street ransacked the best universities for game theorists and options modellers. And on the public stage, economists were seen as far more trustworthy than politicians. John McCain joked that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, was so indispensable that if he died, the president should “prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him.”
Yes, the profession clearly peaked (along with the housing bubble) when
Freakonomics was published in 2006, but, more importantly, it's been some time since I've thought about that quip from a very different John McCain in late-1999.
It's aging well...
From
Wikiquote comes the exact wording and a
reference at CNN. McCain said, "I would not only reappoint Mr. Greenspan -- if Mr. Greenspan should happen to die, God forbid -- I would do like was did in the movie, 'Weekend at Bernie's.' I'd prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him and keep him as long as we could".
Anyway, back to the introspection at The Economist.
In the wake of the biggest economic calamity in 80 years that reputation has taken a beating. In the public mind an arrogant profession has been humbled. Though economists are still at the centre of the policy debate—think of Ben Bernanke or Larry Summers in America or Mervyn King in Britain—their pronouncements are viewed with more scepticism than before. The profession itself is suffering from guilt and rancour.
