Economists “are like highly trained athletes who never run a race”…

Amazing words on economists by Paul Samuelson.

I picked these words from this article by Assar Lindbeck on European Economics (which in turn was picked up from this post on State of Phd Program in Europe). Lindbeck wrote this piece in 2001 but still seems so true.

In a very brief note he says how European economics and research departments nearly disappeared in 1930s and 1940s thanks to evil political forces. He reflects how he saw top European brains teaching in US univs:

As the result of evil political forces in the 1930s and 1940s, research and qualified academic education in economics nearly disappeared from the  European continent. To a considerable extent, this loss of competence took the form of a brain drain to the United States. The damage to academic research and teaching was particularly pronounced in the field of “technical economics”, i.e., formalized economic theory and econometrics, since the role of teachers and course programs is particularly important in these fields.

I saw the mirror image of this development quite clearly while studying in the United States in the late 1950s. At Yale University I could not avoid noticing the unmistakably European accents in the lectures of Gerard Debreau, William Fellner, Tjalling Koopmans and Robert Triffin. I had a similar experience during a subsequent stay at University of Michigan, where I listened to and learned from George Katona, Richard Musgrave and Wolfgang Stolper.

Things have changed in the recent years as economics departments have come up in Europe. Though they lack the class of US economics depts., but still progress has been made.In the 1990s the european eco depts were made similar to US ones which did help things a bit.

However, this has led to different set of problems. Most econ students have just become too technical and math oriented. There is little appreciation for policy and real world economic issues:

There are at least two serious enigmas in this context. First, the increased emphasis in graduate programs on mathematical methods and abstract theoretical analysis influences the recruitment of students to economics. It is valuable that a number of students from mathematics, natural sciences and technology enter Ph.D. programs in economics. But it is also important that less technically trained students with a genuine interest in social, economic and political issues join these programs and that they find the dicipline interesting enough to continue their studies.

Second, many graduate students today have to devote so much effort to acquiring technical-analytical skills that they do not have
time to develop a good and intuitive understanding of important economic, social and political problems. Many do not follow the general discussion about economic, social and political issues in the media. In some cases, they hardly know whether there is a boom or recession in their country of residence or for that matter in the world.

So we have most students are like idiot savants who learn things mechanically. So we do not have two-legged econs who can balance techniques with real world:

One unfortunate side effect of all this is that we do not educate enough “two-legged economists”, who both master analytical techniques and have a feeling for real-world problems. This may be a reason for the receding role of academic economists in the general discussion of economic and social problems in several European countries. The role abandoned by economists tends instead to be taken up by others. For instance, other social scientists, including sociologists, political scientists and economic historians, increasingly take part in the general economic and economic policy discussion. It is fine, of course, that researchers with training in these fields participate in the public debate about important problems in society. But they can never replace competent broadly trained economists.The void created by “retreating” economists, in particular in the mass media, is also filled by spokespersons for various organizations – for instance, banks and interest groups. Again, they simply cannot fully fill the role of academic economists.

I don’t really think this is true – “other social scientists, including sociologists, political scientists and economic historians, increasingly take part in the general economic and economic policy discussion”. Infact we hardly hear these people in the media. The problem really has been most people who are in the media are the same one legged econs…

Now to the super Samuelson words:

This risk was pointed out a long time ago by the most influential economic theorist in  the 20th century, Paul Samuelson, in his
Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947, p. 4): Economists “are like highly trained athletes who never run a race”.There are many more such economists around today than in 1947 – both in Europe and in other parts of the world, where training in  technical economics has improved in recent decades. Perhaps the increased interest in empirical research in recent years, including experimental economics, will contribute to improve the situation in the future. Indeed, these new tendencies may be seen as a reaction to the problems that I have just described.

I don’t think much has changed. If Lindbeck were to review his paper now, it is likely to remain the same. Infact he could be disappointed with the little progress people have made.

This blog gets these economics career related queries once a while. I must admit upfront that I am not qualified to handle these queries but still is interesting to note one thing. Most people are worried over not knowing math rather than not knowing eco…They complain that most univs in India or abroad demand super math skills and hence cannot avoid it…One does not really know what to say or do….