Blame the Economists . . .

Lately, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time with economists.

This past month, I have been at several dinners (party of 8) with them, spent time in the woods of Maine chatting them up, listened to their debates on economic policy, even spent time in a canoe fishing with them. Propriety — and Chatham House Rules — prevents me from naming any of the wonks, but it includes Chief Economists at major Wall Street firms, government entities, professors, with a few Nobel laureates thrown in for good measure.

This has led me to an interesting chain of thought about economists in general, and the failure of economics the discipline specifically. Note that I find economists to be intelligent, engaging and often charming. My references here are not to the people who call themselves economists, but rather to their work product that we call “economics.”

Long time readers know this is an an area of interest to me for many years (see the list after the jump). Way back in 2009, I gave 10 reasons Why Economists Missed the Crises. All 10 of the reasons given remain in force today, and may even be stronger.

In the intervening years, I have reached a few conclusions. This is worthy of much deeper study and analysis than the short shrift given here, but until then, I have a few ideas I wanted to jot down. If you have any intelligent thoughts on this subject, be sure to share them in comments.

Based on my time spent with Economists, here are a few anecdotal observations:

Issues of Economists & Economics

1. Economics is a discipline, not a Science. Physics can send a satellite to orbit Jupiter, Economics cannot tell you what happened yesterday. This is an enormous distinction, and has led to a) the “Physics Envy,” and b) an unnecessary emphasis on mathematical complexity.

2. Models are of limited utility. People forget that (as George Box has noted) models are imperfect depictions of reality. If you become overly reliant on them, you encounter a minefield of problems. Several analysts have told me that if the Fed cannot model something, than to them, it does not exist. Think about the absurdity of that viewpoint — and its impact on policy.

3. Contextualizing data often leads to error. This is more complex than it appears. What I mean by this is that everything that economists consider has to be forced into their intellectual framework; since everything is viewed through the imperfect lens of Economic Theory, the output is similarly imperfect — sometimes fatally.

4. Narrative drives most of economics. This is the corollary to the context issue. Everything seems to be part of a story, and how that story is told often leads to critical error. Think about phrases like “stall speed”, “second half rebound”, “muddle through”,  “Minsky moment”, “austerity”, “escape velocity”, etc.  All of these lead to rich tales often filled with emotional resonance.

5. Economists are loathe to admit ‘They Don’t Know.’ This trait is common to many professions, but I suspect the modeling issue may be partly to blame. Whenever I see forecast written out to 2 decimal places, I cannot help but wonder if there is a misunderstanding of the limitations of the data, and an illusion of precision. To paraphrase, “Only the people who understand both the data and its limitations will not get lost in the illusion of precision.”

6. A tendency to confuse correlation with causation.  This is one of the oldest statistical foibles known to mankind, and yet economics remains rife with it at the highest levels. Look no further than the Fed’s obsession with the Wealth Effect for a classic correlation error; I shudder when I think about what other arenas they are fundamentally lost in.

7. The Peril of Predictions. I cannot figure out why economists seem to be so wed to making predictions, given how utterly miserable they are at it. Items 1 and 5 might be a factor.

8. Sturgeon’s Law: Lastly, there is a wide dispersion of talent in Economics, and following Sturgeon’s Law, many of the rank & file are simply mediocre.

One last note: This is not, as Paul Krugman has referenced, a debate as to which subgroup of economists are right or wrong; rather, its a set of observations of the species as a whole.

Perhaps this post is mis-titled; Instead of Blame the Economists it should read Blame Economics.

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