[P2P-F] Fw: What Are Economists For? Associate! March 2012

[robert searle]

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Subject: What Are Economists For? Associate! March 2012

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What are Economists for? Associate! March 2012
This issue concerns the state of economics as a discipline, the way the subject is taught, and the general aptness or otherwise of its practitioners. The complaint that economics is not fit for purpose is an old one, yet when we last covered this ground in September 2009 it was primarily confined to heterodox circles. 

The difference now is that virtually no one, from the Queen to the governor of the Bank of England, thinks that economics is fit for purpose. Symptomatic of the seriousness of people’s concerns is a recent conference hosted by the Bank of England*, attended by one of our editors, Arthur Edwards. Much of this issue derives from that gathering.

In the lead piece Eclectic Economics, John Kay goes for the jugular by identifying the fatal flaw of the modelling approach. No matter how good the model it remains just that ‘a potentially illuminating abstraction’, when what is needed is ‘pragmatic thinking, employing many tools’.

Sign of Our Time highlights the importance of two character traits by which economists are not generally known: humility and passion. It’s author,David Colander, also advocates a boots-on-the-ground idea rather than the one-curriculum-fits-all approach in place today.

The feature item is a report by Arthur Edwards that gives the mood of the Bank of England seminar while pointing to how different things might look were an associative approach taken to education in economics.

The AEX pages comprises a comment on the Greek debt crisis and a review of Re-assessing the Paradigm of Economics by LSE’s Valeria Mosini, very apt in the light of this issue’s overall theme.

Accounting Corner rounds the theme of this edition off with a reflection on accounting in the same spirit. 

* ‘What Post-Crisis Changes Does the Economics Discipline Need? Are Graduate Economists Fit for Purpose?’ A UK Government Economics Service seminar with the Bank of England, 7 February 2012.   
 
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