Advanced training in
economics requires learning
about market failures in
detail, and about the myriad
ways in which governments
can help markets work
better
often conveyed their own social and political
preferences. Instead of being analysts, they
have been ideologues, favouring one set of
social arrangements over others.
Furthermore, economists have been
reluctant to share their intellectual doubts
with the public, lest they ‘empower the
barbarians’. No economist can be entirely
sure that his preferred model is correct.
But when he and others advocate it to
the exclusion of alternatives, they end
up communicating a vastly exaggerated
degree of confidence about what course of
action is required.
Paradoxically, then, the current disarray
within the profession is perhaps a better
reflection of the profession’s true value added
than its previous misleading consensus.
Economics can at best clarify the choices for
policy makers; it cannot make those choices
for them.
When economists disagree, the world
gets exposed to legitimate differences of
views on how the economy operates. It is
when they agree too much that the public
should beware.
© Project Syndicate, 2009.
Dani Rodrik, Professor of Political
Economy at Harvard University’s
John F. Kennedy School of
Government, is the first recipient
of the Social Science Research
Council’s Albert O. Hirschman Prize.
His latest book is One Economics,
Many Recipes: Globalisation,
Institutions, and Economic Growth.
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