Issue 21, Fall 2001

William A. McEachern, Editor

Who's an Economist?

The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon have put the media on a recession watch. Most of those covering the economy have little training in economics. For example, Virginia Postrel, who writes an "Economic Scene" column in the New York Times has a B.A. in English. Any economist who has been interviewed by reporters soon realizes that most of the time goes toward basic education, and only after that groundwork is laid is a reporter in a position to add some value to the story. That's not surprising, or even troubling.

What may give us pause, however, is the background of some "economists" quoted in the media. I had dinner recently with an oft-quoted "economist" who works for a big international bank. He has a Ph.D., but in political science, not in economics. He says he doubled his salary by marketing himself as an economist. In my state of Connecticut, two "economists" frequently quoted in the state media have no formal economics education to speak of - neither majored in economics as an undergraduate and both have masters in public administration.

It's been my experience in discussing the economy with reporters that they do not like subtlety or ambiguity. Like Harry Truman, they want a one-armed economist. In this setting, perhaps the less an "economist" knows, the easier it is to tell an unambiguous story - often wrong but never in doubt. There could be a variant of Gresham's law at work here.

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