Are Economists Getting a Bum Rap?

Abstract

There has been a lot of disparaging talk about economists lately. My good and respected friend, Irving Kristol, wrote an article in Wall Street Journal entitled, Most Economists Ignore Reality. A little later same newspaper ran a front page story about inadequacy of economists and declining reliance that businessmen place on them. TIME magazine on August 27, 1984 carried a feature article headlined Forecasters Flunk. The subhead was Poor predictions give once prestigious pundits a dismal reputation. A leading journalist for Washington Post, most of whose writing consists of retelling what economists said to him, wrote an Op-Ed piece entitled, Economists Are Guessing Again. During his first debate with Walter Mondale, when he was asked why his 1980 promise of a balanced budget by 1983 had not come true President blamed failure on poor forecasts by economists. The President seems to like economics jokesthat is, -jokes about economists, not by them. Murray Weidenbaum, first Chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors quotes President as wondering whether he needs a Council of Economic Advisers. Lester Thurow has said that the public esteem of economists is lower than at any time since World War II. My statistical abstract contains no series on public esteem of economists, and Professor Thurow is too young to remember back to World War II, so I wonder how he knows that, but I will take his word for it.