Economists in the Next Millennium: One Voice or Many?

JONATHON MOTE [*] ABSTRACT. This comment is in response to Frederic L. Pryor (2000). "The Millennium Survey: How Economists View the U.S. Economy in the 21st Century." The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 59 (January), pp. 3--33. In "The Millennium Survey: How Economists View the U.S. Economy in the 21st Century," (Pryor 2000) Pryor concludes that "the average results appear quite conservative--only a few of the average answers even approach 'somewhat likely to change' and most are relatively close to current trend values" (Pryor; 27). These results are not altogether too shocking. As McCloskey rightfully points out, "economists and other human scientists can reflect intelligently on present conditions and can tell useful stories about the past" (McCloskey 1992; 133). As we can only attempt to divine the future by way of the parameters of the past and present, the relative economic stability of the past decade does not lend itself to any wild forecasts. In his conclusion, Pryor attempts some amount of modesty for the forecasts provided in the responses, offering up the results of the survey as merely "informed guesses" (Pryor; 28). However, providing useful forecasts--even "informed guesses"--has certainly never been a particularly strong talent of the discipline of economics (Hudson 1987). There is no shame in admitting this fact. The problem is that economists have established such high expectations for themselves and their discipline. They routinely trot out advanced computational models and set themselves up as "experts" on the notoriously fickle economy, discrediting any others that might have an opinion. The recent example of Nobel Prize winning economist Myron Scholes and the debacle of Long-Term Capital provides a sobering illustration of the folly of economic expertise (Edward 1999). Despite Pryor's cautious presentation of the survey responses, the economists' "informed guesses" are distinguished from the "talking heads, cranks, and frauds that ar e currently making predictions about the economy" (Pryor; 28). So it appears that Pryor follows the disciplinary tradition of maintaining that there are two categories of people with opinions about the economy, economists or complete loons. Perhaps the most interesting thing about these informed guesses is the heterogeneity of the responses. In this respect, I would suggest that the survey and its responses tell us as much about the future of the economy as it does about the discipline of economics. In two words: not much. In my brief comments below, I will discuss the survey's limitations on both of these topics. Given the rather informal nature of the survey, I will largely ignore technical matters and focus instead on larger disciplinary issues. The organizational sociologist Ivar Berg has often quipped that when the economy is good he tells people that he is an economist. However, when the economy is bad, he relates that he is a sociologist. Such a comment is telling about how the boundaries and substance of the two disciplines are viewed. Economists are perceived as being experts on the economy and sociologists are experts on the exogenous forces that affect the economy. Economists can tell you why the economy is working well, and sociologists can tell you what went wrong and interfered with the economy's "invisible hand." While this represents a simplistic understanding of the two disciplines, let us assume for the moment that it holds. It would be difficult to find a consensus among sociologists about the problems with the economy. Sociology is a discipline that encompasses a diverse range of methodology and perspectives. One could find a wide number of sociological prescriptions on economic matters, not all consistent or in accord with one another. Based on Pryor's article, one might get the idea that the discipline of economics is the exact opposite--that there are only "economists," with no differentiation among them. …