Yet economists talk much more about trade than they do about health care policy, because they think they know something about it in a way the laity don’t…don’t let economist’s tendency to overemphasize their areas of expertise distort your view.
I don’t agree with every claim in this Krugman piece, least of all his defense of you-know-who, but I think that psychoanalysis of economists is spot on.
Wow, Tyler is comparing Hillary to Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. I didn’t know she was THAT evil!
I thought it wasn’t so much that this gas tax holiday is terrible, but that Clinton probably understands tax incidence (or at the very least, somebody who works for her does) and this shows her to be extremely willing to openly mislead the American people. Why are we so willing to ignore the fact that so office of President involves a sacred trust and ought to be a privilege? We seriously can’t do better than this?
Economists are good at resource and allocation questions. Ignore the science of their field and somebody starves to death. If one describes economists as more often exhibiting some psychological pattern, one is not speaking scientifically as an economist.
Economists are human, and subject to the whole range of biases and arrogance. In this sense, Krugman is perhaps superhuman.
So, don’t talk about what you don’t know about, and don’t talk about what you do know about.
Sounds like good advice for a few unnamed economists-turned-pundit.
I think Josh has touched on the reason why Hillary’s support of the gas tax holiday leads to freaking out by so many economists and economically literate non-economists.
Virtually everyone who understands tax incidence analysis thinks the tax holiday is a lousy idea, regardless of their political beliefs. It’s been skewered by every economist I have seen discuss it, ranging from the very liberal to the very conservative and everyone in between (except Bryan Caplan, who admitted it was bad but still defended it on the grounds that the alternatives might be worse). The rejection of the gas tax holiday is about as close as social science ever gets to unanimous agreement. If you’re going to listen to economists on any topic, then presumably this is a topic where you might pay attention because of the strength of the consensus.
But Clinton doesn’t seem to care.
That suggests a disconcerting willingness to ignore expert opinion when it is politically unpalatable. That’s not a quality that most economists (or most educated people) want in a president.
I think the freaking out stems less from the harmfulness of the idea and more from her emphatic rejection of the professional consensus.
Maybe economists are biased toward what matters more for 6.6 billion people than 300 million.
So they are, in effect, paid and unpaid agents of foreign peoples.
And we should listen to their opinions, why?
Please come to age of conan gold, we will give you a great surprise.
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