Scary thought: if economists ran the world.
This video raises some questions: 1) how involved are economists in policy-making? 2) Why is it a good thing that economists do not make policy--assuming they don't? I'd love some enlightenment from any economists out there.
2 comments:
While Sen. Menendez may be correct, many economists don't feel the pain of the average American, it is their goal to make decisions based on a system which maximizes welfare and minimizes costs. I think this is a valid goal the Senator's comments point more to the discipline's shortcoming that the models economists use have some flaws--they don't necessarily describe the way real economic actors behave or assign the correct values to the world around us. But don't throw out the baby with the bath water: policy makers should not be making illogical feel-good suggestions.
If the rational used to decide who makes decision is who "feels the pain of the average American", then we need to start using a jury-duty type of system where we select a panel of randomly selected people to make policy decisions.
Politicians might hear/see the pain felt by the average American, but it's hard to argue that the average Senator or Cabinet member "feels" that pain...
The point is that in no way is it a prerequisite for someone to be directly affected by an issue for that person to actually tackle it. Surgeons do that all day long and nobody complains that they don't have cancer.
Economists don't always do things right, but when I hear this kind of argument coming from a politician, I automatically assume that he means "no economist in their right mind would support this plan".
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