The Work That Didn't Win Claudia Goldin Her Nobel Is Great Too
The public values economists for being able to predict the future, which they can’t do. Nobody can. The economics profession values economists for being able to translate observable reality into elegant mathematical equations, which the rest of us don’t care two hoots about. Politicians value economists as arbiters of public policy questions that may or may not lend themselves to economic analysis. (To review the latter, see my October 2022 essay, “May God Save Us From Economists.”) Myself, I va