I am writing from my notes. The event I want to report took place some two months ago, I have since been preoccupied, then occupied, and now increasingly overwhelmed. In the rooms of the Washington Duke Inn sat some 20 economists, philosophers, historians and methodologists, discussing "herding behavior" in the economics profession. I have been to several of similar events and they are spottingly attended, with folks coming in and out of the room, physically and mentally. Not so this time.
The experience was unexpectedly intense. All chairs were taken. Everyone stayed to the end. All were on target, despite the sunshine calling out to the golf course across the windows. (Perhaps, not many golfers in the room.) In two packed days, ground was covered, although no conclusion was sought or reached. Each participant riffed on the mandated topic of "herding" from their own disciplinary, personal vantage point. And there was not much space to discuss what fabric to weave from these threads.
Sitting on the sideline without having to present, it seemed to me that we know well about the powers of reproduction and emulation. We know the sociology of graduate schools and the economists' job market and we learn more and more about the structures that hold apart the elite of the American economics profession. We know of how fads and trends, and toolkits and themes spread across the professional literature. What still don't know much about is how the economists' wares are bought and sold.
On itself there is nothing really troublesome in economists sheepishly grazing the fields of orthodoxy. The trouble is that, like Monty Python explained many years ago, an ambitious sheep is that most dangerous of animals.
The problem that preoccupies the convenors of the workshop is to deconstruct orthodoxy and obtain a more open, pluralistic field of discourse. That's a very excellent goal. My puzzle is how do economists create research futures that are so convincing to their clients? To secure patronage, economists, like any other scientists, need to convince that their wares produce the intended outcomes: their metrics can photograph economic decision in motion, their theories depict the structures of a healthy economy, their policy blueprints yield progress and social justice in one stroke. Like Ponzi, are they making promises they can't keep, for the sake of staying in business?
Herds of economists bred for the service of other economists, is a local and professional perversion, but a herd that is sheperd by the anxieties and aspirations of their patrons and their polities is another, more scary matter.
Comments
This is truly amazing how little "result-oriented" economics has become. Someone decsribed the current mentality of researchers as been focused on producing cute-o-nomics. I am also surprised about how goodness of fit has disappeared from the field, due to the intensification of VAR techniques, which free researchers from accountability of their results NOT matching reality.
Ah, reality invoked again. What flavor is it, what color and smell? Would one know it if one tripped over it? Is it an it, anyway? Now I understand about a prediction not being consistent with an interpretation of some data, data produced by a network of calculations generated by sets of institutions and analytical structures, but is that the real reality, really really truly? Rhetorically, cfaugrere seems to employ reality as a reification of an interpretation that differs from an interpretation he/she abhors. Can sensible folk not agree that reality is not sensibly invoked in argument, and thus is not worth talking about?
I am a member of INET, in that I have an account on this website, and I am a reader of most that is posted here. For all INETs self-congratulation about discovering "new economic thinking" and supporting it, I am struck that every researcher supported is an economist (or economic historian) well-ensconced in an economics department (OK, often at the assistant or associate level), or business school. This is fine: INET is about finding slightly new economic thinking among economists, i.e. slightly odd-colored lambs among the sheep. (Actually, I have not met an economist who does not claim being 'outside the fold.') But truly new economic thinking would probably come from outside the fold entirely. I'm not saying it would come from children, or naifs, or cranks (although it could!), but from smart thinkers in other professions and disciplines: political science, literary studies, planning, design, architecture, engineering, urban affairs, history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, communications, business itself..many of whom have un-indoctrinated perspectives on economic life and new language to offer about what markets are and how they work. I believe INET does good. I think it could do better if it could persuade its younger sheep, indeed itself, to listen to some quite other species.
"every researcher supported is an economist (or economic historian) well-ensconced in an economics department (OK, often at the assistant or associate level), or business school." This is factually false with respect to the members of this blog, but I imagine you are speaking of the grants competition, and for that, I will not speak on INET's behalf...
I might pipe up for the non academics here then. Sitting in a government department, I'd like to suggest that the perspective is quite different, and as Tiago says, I think you'll find that this blog in particular does not conform to the Anonymous contribution as to who is writing.
As for reality, I find that I agree with erw's point completely (having just gone through some long conversations with our national statistics office on the measurement of certain investment categories), but am also struggling to decide what is the appropriate level of realness - if that makes any sens at all?
Can we find some level of empirical measurement which is useful, while not being complete and fully informed about reality? I expect there is work on this out there - any leads?
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