I read their book called Poor economics and to be honest, I have deep cynicism of most academic economists, advocating for more central planning and themselves somehow getting their salary from taxes and political rent seeking. So I would not be too worried if these people leave the US, but still would love to hear what others more familiar with the economics research landscape think.
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Nobel-winning economists Duflo and Banerjee will leave US for Switzerlandwww.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/10/10/nobel-winning-economists-duflo-and-banerjee-will-leave-the-us-for-switzerland_6746307_19.html#:~:text=United%20States%2Dbased%20Nobel%20laureates,said%20on%20Friday%2C%20October%2010.
Let me see if I get this. You read one book on one suggestion of an experimental approach and you take your cynicism and apply it to them broadly. So, instead of seeking opinion on the experiment they suggest. You judge them as people and seek opinion on that?
Am I getting this right?
I'm not sure if that's what he's saying, but the developing world has taken some heavy blows from experiments gone wrong. I don't blame anyone for thinking poorly of the members of my profession.
To me it sounds like the issue is with policy-makers, not the providers of information to policy makers. To me this is like blaming the firearm, instead of the user of the firearm.
In many cases I think that's a fair way to look at it. I'm critical of the hubris and arrogance many people in my profession operate under. I think they're betraying whatever trust has been placed in us as experts by not updating their priors or engaging with alternative perspectives.
There are numerous cases, though, of experts showing up in villages and doing stuff that ends up being pretty damaging. Sure, they usually get permission from some corrupt official beforehand, but I don't think that absolves them from experimenting on communities who aren't familiar with the bad track record of these experts.
I'd recommend William Easterly's book Tyranny of Experts for anyone who wants an overview of this topic.
Thanks!
I'm an academic economist. Follow my latest research here: https://stacker.news/SimpleStacker#research-in-public
It's open for anyone to see and review, live, as I work on it. Hopefully it provides a transparent view on what economics research is, what it isn't, and what's valuable about it, and what's not.
I can't really comment much on the Duflo/Banerjee situation. I know they have a good reputation in the profession, but I personally am not that familiar with their work. I think the general public is either too trusting or too distrustful of academic economists. Few people seem to strike the right balance, but I don't blame them, since knowing what to trust and what not to requires a bit of insider understanding as to how the profession operates.
Would it be fair to say that the balance should be sought in the aggregate, not in the individual?
Is there a guide?
Understanding academic economists for Dummies?No, I don't think that's preferrable. That just leads to pointless disagreements based on both sides having an inaccurate understanding
Good idea. I might make a post about this for Pleb Economist. If I had to give a short answer, I'd probably focus on:
The problem with that is that there will always be dissent for the sake of dissent, right? But you're probably right that some sort of middle truth is preferable. I sometimes wonder how we get there from polarization. How does society depolarize?
That'd be awesome.
This happens even to me and I'm not an academic. I've seen whole theories being ascribed to some code even though I thought I'd made it crystal clear. It's at times hard to take the blame for not stating things unambiguously enough when it happens, which is also part of how I get to "dissent for the sake of dissent".
That's legitimately a nobel peace prize winning question
The move by Banerjee and Duflo to Zurich is probably less about politics and more about the incentives and lifestyle such a university can offer. Switzerland has the resources to fund long-term research without the political noise that US academics often complain about. That matters in development economics because their work depends on time consuming field studies in multiple countries.
They show that poor people do not always lack ambition or rationality often they strategically invest in festivals or other social occasions because maintaining networks is a survival strategy in uncertain economies. The point is that they try to understand human behavior in context rather than treat it like an abstract equation.