Quote of the Day | 0530
John Maynard Keynes famously looked forward to a day when “economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people, on a level with dentists”.
It’s a nice piece of self-deprecation, but it’s also an analogy worth exploring. We don’t expect a dentist to be able to forecast the pattern of tooth decay. We expect that she will offer good practical advice on dental health and intervene to fix problems when they occur. We should demand much the same from economists: proven advice about how to keep the economy working well and solutions when the economy malfunctions. And economists should bear in mind that no self-respecting dentist would be caught dead forecasting when your teeth will fall out.
Tim Harford, ‘An astonishing record – of complete failure’
[x]#11523 fan vrijdag 30 mei 2014 @ 15:40:07
