The Making Of An Economist

Arjo Klamer, David Colander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367293680
• eBook ISBN: 9781000303124
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book focuses on the graduate education of a small group of economists—those at elite schools. It is intended for three audiences: aspiring economists, economists, and the lay public. The book reports conversations with MIT, Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia students.

Part One
Introduction

Surveys are not the usual way that economists gather empirical evidence, Thus, when we conducted a survey, it provoked a number of comments from the profession. Luckily for us, in response to some of the same concerns we had, the American Economic Association had recently founded a new journal, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, which was designed to discuss economic issues in a less technical manner. We presented the central results of the survey there; Chapter 2 is a reprint of that article. The questionnaire we developed is reproduced in Appendix 2B. Chapter 3 extracts some student comments from the questionnaire.Chapter 1 describes the nature of the economics profession to put the survey in context for the lay reader.

1
The Nature of the Economics Profession

"How can I become an economist?" Imagine a student asking this question of her professor. And imagine she volunteers a few avenues herself. "Should I first go to Wall Street and learn how markets work?" Getting firsthand experience may sound like a good idea to her, but the professor will briskly dismiss the suggestion. "Well, maybe I should get a job in a real business—say, turning out automobiles." The answer will be "no" again: "That's not how you learn economics." She'll try one more time. "Well, how about if I read all the top economists of the past—John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo, Adam Smith?" The professor will say, "It wouldn't hurt, but it probably won't help." Now the student asks, "What should I do?" An honest answer would be, "Going to graduate school is the gateway to becoming an economist." Instead of asking "How?" she should ask "Where? Which graduate school?"

Graduate schools have not always held the key to becoming an economist. In the nineteenth century and even in the early twentieth century, the "How?" question was pertinent. Graduate schools in economics didn't exist, and in their absence, many different paths led to fame in economics. Take David Ricardo. He was not only a famous economist but also a London stockbroker, and later in his life a respected parliamentarian. John Stuart Mill wrote about economics while a bureaucrat in the East India Company for thirty-six years. Francis Edgeworth, the British economist who dreamed up the indifference and contract curves, taught logic and wrote about economics as well as ethics. William Stanley Jevons started his career in mineralogy and wrote a book on physics. Leon Walras wrote a novel and lived like a bohemian before he turned to the theory of economics. These people were not professional economists, because when they wrote there were no professional economists. Professionalization—specialization—came only later.

Economics as a Profession

As economic knowledge grew, the economics profession became more insulated. In the United States, academic economics came to dominate economics organizations and to define the nature of economists. As that happened, the real-world emphasis of economics, so noticeable in the nineteenth century, declined. Thus, when the student asked her professor how to become an economist, the professor thought of himself (and we mean himself—the economics profession is dominated by men) and his colleagues. An economist was someone absorbed in academic affairs, busy teaching and writing academic papers.

Today the economics profession has become sufficiently insulated from the real world that it is the subject of jokes and parodies. Just ask any economist what the can-opener joke is, and you'll get the answer. The joke is a satire of economists' predilection for assumptions. A somewhat less well-known, but nonetheless biting, satire of the profession was written by Axel Leijonhufvud: "The Econ tribe occupies a vast territory in the far North. Their land appears bleak and dismal to the outsider, and travelling through it makes for rough sledding." Leijonhufvud calls his parody "Life Among the Econ."¹ The notion of economists as a tribe and the image of economics as a far-off land that "appears bleak and dismal to the outsider" are bothersome, if not annoying, to many economists. As is true of any good parody, Leijonhofvud's comes uncomfortably close to reality.

Economists protect themselves by their language. Leijonhufvud writes: "The extreme clannishness, not to say xenophobia, of the Econ makes life among them difficult and perhaps even somewhat dangerous for the outsider." Jargon, secret codes, and various social procedures keep the outsiders out. Initiation rituals prevent easy entry. "The young Econ, or 'grad,' is not admitted to adulthood until he has made a 'modi' exhibiting a degree of workmanship acceptable to the elders of the 'dept' in which he serves his apprenticeship. Adulthood is conferred in an intricate ceremony the particulars of which vary from village to village."

Like most professionals, economists have a keen sense of who is "in" and who is "out." The Ph.D. after the name signals that the person is an insider (although economists are far more subtle than to place a pedigree after their names; rather, they let their Ph.D.-hood come up casually in conversation).

Like medical doctors, economists behave as professionals. Their articles have a professional format. Theorems, lemmas, and mathematics are in. English is out. Their professional language is at least as foreign to the public as medical jargon is to patients. In dealing within the profession, economists follow a professional code. Helping out colleagues, writing recommendations, traveling long distances to serve on panels—all are gestures to be expected from the professional economist. Much of the interaction within the economics profession is nonmarket interaction.

Like medical doctors, economists have their own institutions that sustain the profession. Their equivalent of the American Medical Association is the American Economic Association (AEA), which confers legitimacy on economists. This association is dominated by the elite graduate schools.

Most doctors work as doctors, applying their skills in the real world, whereas most elite economists don't work in the real world. True, the elite of the medical profession centers around universities, but the elite have their private practices, too. They keep their fingers in the pie, so to speak. Elite economists are more likely to stay within the academic institutions and use their skills to advance the knowledge of their peers, A few are for hire as consultants, textbook writers, or court witnesses, but such activities are looked down upon by the profession. Economists who dedicate their careers to such outside services for pay are treated with suspicion. Medical doctors derive professional status from their prestige in the community at large. In contrast, public prestige often hurts economists in their professional standing. For example, economists treat John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the best-known economists in the world today, with due respect, but do not encourage their graduate students to read his work. Many use "Galbraithism" as a term of derision. The rule seems to be, "If ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART ONE INTRODUCTION
• PART TWO CONVERSATIONS WITH GRADUATE STUDENTS
• PART THREE INTERPRETATIONS
• Notes
• About the Authors
• Index