Comment on “The Millennium Survey: How Economists View the U.S. Economy in the 21st Century”

DAVID JAFFEE [*] 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. And I thought it was sociologists who couldn't agree on anything! According to Frederic Pryor's survey, economists are equally divided on the fundamental questions--in this case, the future direction of the U.S. economy. The general lack of consensus among the economists surveyed would seem to validate the profound observation of the French poet Paul Valery who wrote, "The problem with our times is that the future is not what it used to be." Indeed. There might have been a time in the not too distant past when economists and other social scientists were more united on their assessment of future trends. Today, however, there is a greater sense of instability, impermanence, and flux. Some call this the post-modern condition. There are some additional explanations for what Pryor describes candidly as the "relatively humdrum" responses to his survey questions, I believe the less than stimulating results can be largely attributed to the kinds of questions posed. The problem with the closed-ended questions that Pryor constructed is that they tend to yield bland and predictable responses. On the question of U.S. per capita GDP, for example, the response categories range from "considerably more than 1% per year" to "considerably less than 1% per year." Summarizing the results on this item is unlikely to unleash lively prose nor is it likely to make for stimulating reading. And, not surprisingly, those who forecast the most dramatic economic changes are more likely to indicate that "if realized, this predicted trend would have a major impact on the economic system and major institutions." Furthermore, all of the survey items attempt to tap predictions about quantitative economic changes (increases, decreases) that are related to established economic indicators. There are two problems with this approach. First, the most significant socio-economic changes currently taking place and likely to continue into the future are of a qualitative nature. That is, it is not simply that the economy is growing more or less rapidly, or that the financial side of the economy will increase or decrease considerably, but that economic growth and financial markets today seem to operate in a qualitatively different fashion from the past. Second, there is a growing consensus, if one may be allowed to use the term, that the very quantitative indicators on which the survey questions are based no longer accurately measure, or reflect, today's economic reality. All the talk about the New Economy, information technology, and the knowledge organization begs for a new accounting system. Even the relationship between such time-honored indicators as unemployment and inflation seems to have been fundamentally altered. All of this suggests that even if we are able to predict the direction of changes in the leading indicators, this will not provide a complete picture of the economy's future. …