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What if economics demanded a diversity of real world experience?

Recipient profile picture Paul Kofman
i
4 April
Dear Paul Kofman,
Now and then we hear the suggestion that economists are in need of some formal accreditation. Accountants, lawyers, doctors, pilots, and teachers, after all, require certification before they can practice. So why not economists? Yes, if only we had more certified economists running around. Surely then there might be less budget mismanagement, income inequality, high unemployment, and financial crises. Right? I understand the need for independent quality control and standardization, but I cannot help but find the notion comical. Because if it’s true, what exactly does it say about the quality of our Bachelor, Master and Doctorate programs in economics? Is economics so much of a rocket science that four to eight years of education is not enough? Are our institutions so out of touch that we need another body to certify our graduates? To be frank, I’ve learned more about competition, business cycles, and human nature as a management consultant than I have from years of esoteric economics with my alma mater. I learned more about practical decision-making from books like Sam Walton’s Made in America, Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog and Andy Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive than my economics textbooks or lecturers. What the economist needs, in my opinion, is not more certifications and testing. I don’t believe you will fix the current problem by adding more layers to an already bloated system (and enlarging the opportunity cost for young, ambitious thinkers that also need to make a living). What budding economists need is more exposure to and integration with the real world. What might happen if acceptance into an economics PhD required a few years of service in entrepreneurship, government, industry, or another scientific discipline (e.g., ecology, psychology, biology)? You might say that this is too far in the other direction. But I want to see different perspectives working together on difficult economic problems for everyday people — not a homogenous pool of candidates with arcane papers and high GRE scores. Non-traditional economists like Kate Raworth, Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and Elinor Ostrom, are great examples of what’s possible. Their fieldwork has led to real progress in economic thinking. Geographers like Jared Diamond also come to mind as well (while not an economist per se, his approach is nonetheless influential). Then we have polymaths like Herbert Simon, whose contributions spanned many fields, from economics to artificial intelligence. Of course, most of us cannot replicate the genius and success of the examples above. But I’m wondering if we can do more as a system to follow their lead. Economics is in real need of diversity. Indeed, to this day, economics PhD recipients are among the least diverse cohorts in academia [1]. Women, people of color and first-generation college students are still underrepresented. This is worrisome given the role the field plays in policy and ideology making. And so I pen this to you, Paul, as the Dean of Business and Economics at The University of Melbourne. I’m sure you’ll agree that the educational structures of economics need work. But I am curious whether anything I’ve said here resonates with you; and if there is anything your school and other institutions can do to make the social sciences better for everyone involved. Thanks for hearing me out. Warm regards, Tobias [1] Stansbury, Anna. & Schultz, Robert. (2022). Socioeconomic diversity of economics PhDs. Working Paper 22-4. Available at < https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/socioeconomic-diversity-economics-phds >

Tobias Lim

Author profile picture Tobias Lim

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