Economists as wonks

Posted by Marc Hodak on May 16, 2007 under Economics | Read the First Comment

Here is what I read in Economist’s View yesterday. It’s part of a dialogue between an ‘economist’ and Joe Public about globalization:

Economist: “You’re right, I and almost all other economists think there have been gains. We debate the size of the gains, but not their existence. So it turns out that globalization has, overall, increased the amount of goods and services that we have. If we distribute the gains right, then everybody, every single person, could have more today than they had in in the past.”

Joe: “Who cares what everyone could have. I could have a yacht if Bill Gates gives me one, but that ain’t gonna happen. I don’t live in your imaginary world.”

Econ: “But here’s the point, the costs of globalization that have fallen on you and others don’t have to be so large, but somehow we have to redistribute…”

Joe: “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’ve heard all that before. Take from the winners, give to the losers. You guys ever actually look at who owns the politicians? What were economists thinking in the 1990s when they were pushing this stuff?”

At this point, the author, Mark Thoma, unwittingly surrenders his voice as an economist, and begins providing the view of a policy wonk. It’s his prerogative to do this switcharoo, but it bothers me that he maintains the veneer of “economist” throughout the rest of the conversation. It’s not just him, lots of economists do it. Paul Krugman comes to mind. Many others.

Me, I like maintaining a distinction. An economist constructs a model that says A leads to more B. The model is presumably based on theory and evidence. Once one begins to discuss the desirability of B or A, regardless of what the model says, competing values enter the discussion, and it transforms into a political discussion.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I want to reform. Plainly, I enjoy spouting off about political issues, but I promise to be straight-forward about it in my categorizations. “Economics” will be about economics, not politics disguised as economics. “Collectivist instinct” will be about politics. I will provide an economic basis for certain assertions I might make in defense of a position, but I won’t pretend that the view is an “economic” one when it is patently based on an ordering of options influenced by a personal set of values.

Some people will say that economics is inherently political. These people believe that everything is political. They politicize the discussion by virtue of that assertion, denying that there is real science to any social sciences. This is part of what I call the collectivist instinct. I have an entire category named after them. That is the appropriate place to discuss competing values.

The category of “Economics” will be a place to discuss how the market resolves competing values. It will be about how A leads to more B. To my mind, a really good economist doesn’t allow himself to get sucked into the policy discussion at all. You don’t know his or her politics based on what they say about economic relationships. Applied economics is hard enough when done right. Even the best models only hint at likely cause and effect. As soon as an economist decides to use her skills to support one political position versus another, the error of bias swamps the error of the data or models.

From now on, I will be a good economist in every post category except “Collectivist instinct.” And I will try to manage the postings so that category doesn’t balloon out of proportion to the others, because there is a lot of fascinating stuff in the others out there.