Gideon Rachman: Sweep Economists Off Their Throne
[Gideon Rachman is a columnist for the Financial Times (UK).]
...There has been some self-examination and soul-searching within the economics profession since the onset of the financial crisis. Joseph Stiglitz, another Nobel prize-winning economist, has suggested that: “If science is defined by its ability to forecast the future, the failure of much of the economics profession to see the crisis coming should be a cause of great concern.” Yet Prof Stiglitz’s conclusion is disappointingly mild: economists must simply search for new “paradigms” – and then presumably go back into the business of scientific prediction.
For somebody educated as a historian, there is an obvious alternative conclusion to draw from Prof Stiglitz’s opening observation. And that is to conclude that the entire attempt to treat economics as a “science ... defined by its ability to forecast the future” is misconceived....
The serious study of history goes all the way back to Herodotus in the fifth century BC. And yet today’s historians are far humbler about what they can hope to achieve than modern economists. Historians know that no big question is ever definitively settled. They know that every big and interesting topic will be revisited, revised and examined from new angles. Each generation will reinterpret the past and deliver its own verdict....
Read entire article at Financial Times (UK)
...There has been some self-examination and soul-searching within the economics profession since the onset of the financial crisis. Joseph Stiglitz, another Nobel prize-winning economist, has suggested that: “If science is defined by its ability to forecast the future, the failure of much of the economics profession to see the crisis coming should be a cause of great concern.” Yet Prof Stiglitz’s conclusion is disappointingly mild: economists must simply search for new “paradigms” – and then presumably go back into the business of scientific prediction.
For somebody educated as a historian, there is an obvious alternative conclusion to draw from Prof Stiglitz’s opening observation. And that is to conclude that the entire attempt to treat economics as a “science ... defined by its ability to forecast the future” is misconceived....
The serious study of history goes all the way back to Herodotus in the fifth century BC. And yet today’s historians are far humbler about what they can hope to achieve than modern economists. Historians know that no big question is ever definitively settled. They know that every big and interesting topic will be revisited, revised and examined from new angles. Each generation will reinterpret the past and deliver its own verdict....