In November 2008 the Queen asked why so few Economists had foreseen the credit crunch.<\/p>\n
Ten leading British Economists write to Her Majesty, claiming that the training of economists is too narrow:
\n\u201cMathematical technique should not dominate real-world substance.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
During a visit to the London School of Economics in November 2008, the Queen asked why few economists had foreseen the credit crunch. Dated 22 July 2009, she received an answer from Professors Tim Besley and Peter Hennessy. This was widely quoted in the British press.<\/p>\n
Ten leading British economists \u2013 including academics from top universities, three Academicians of the Academy of Social Sciences, academic journal editors, a former member of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and the Chief Economic Advisor the Greater London Authority \u2013 have responded by writing their own response to the Queen. They note that the letter by Professors Besley and Hennessy fails to consider any deficiency in the training of economists themselves.<\/p>\n
Following similar complaints by Nobel Laureates Ronald Coase, Wassily Leontief and Milton Friedman, the ten economists argue that economists has become largely transformed into a branch of applied mathematics, with little contact with the real world. The letter by Professors Besley and Hennessy does not consider how the preference for mathematical technique over real-world substance diverted many economists from looking at the whole picture.<\/p>\n
The ten economists uphold that the narrow training of economists \u2013 which concentrates on mathematical techniques and the building of empirically uncontrolled formal models \u2013 has been a major reason for the failure of the economics profession to give adequate warnings of the economic crises in 2007 and 2008.<\/p>\n
The ten signatories also point out that while Professors Besley and Hennessy complain that economists have become overly \u2018charmed by the market\u2019, they mention neither the highly questionable belief in universal \u2018rationality\u2019 nor the \u2018efficient markets hypothesis\u2019, which are both widely taught and promoted by mainstream economists. <\/p>\n
The ten economists call for a broader training of economists, involving allied disciplines such as psychology and economic history, as well as mathematics.<\/p>\n
Sheila C. Dow
\nProfessor of Economics, University of Stirling and author of Money and the Economic Process and Economic Methodology <\/p>\n
Peter E. Earl
\nAssociate Professor of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia, and author of Business Economics: A Contemporary Approach<\/p>\n
John Foster
\nProfessor of Economics, University of Queensland, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and President Elect of the International J. A. Schumpeter Society<\/p>\n
Geoffrey C. Harcourt
\nEmeritus Reader, University of Cambridge, Emeritus Professor, University of Adelaide, Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia<\/p>\n
Geoffrey M. Hodgson
\nResearch Professor of Business Studies, University of Hertfordshire, Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Institutional Economics<\/p>\n
J. Stanley Metcalfe
\nEmeritus Professor of Economics, University of Manchester and former member of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission<\/p>\n
Paul Ormerod
\nAcademician of the Academy of Social Sciences and author of the Death of Economics, Butterfly Economics, and Why Most Things Fail<\/p>\n
Bridget Rosewell
\nChairman of Volterra Consulting and Chief Economic Adviser to the Greater London Authority<\/p>\n
Malcolm C. Sawyer
\nProfessor of Economics, University of Leeds and Managing Editor of the International Review of Applied Economics<\/p>\n
Andrew Tylecote
\nProfessor of the Economics and Management of Technological Change, University of Sheffield<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La Reine d\u2019Angleterre s\u2019\u00e9tant inqui\u00e9t\u00e9e que les \u00e9conomistes n\u2019aient pas su pr\u00e9voir la crise, dix \u00e9conomistes britanniques ou appartenant au Commonwealth, lui r\u00e9pondent que la science \u00e9conomique est devenue \u00ab une branche \u00e9troite des math\u00e9matiques appliqu\u00e9es, pratiquement sans relation avec le monde r\u00e9el \u00bb. Ils r\u00e9clament un \u00e9largissement de l\u2019enseignement \u00e0 d\u2019autres disciplines dont la […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,21,4],"tags":[4464,25,4471,35,4465],"class_list":["post-4189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropologie","category-economie","category-monnaie","category-sociologie","tag-anthropologie","tag-crise","tag-monnaie","tag-science-economique","tag-sociologie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4189"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4198,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions\/4198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pauljorion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}