Both parties have turned their backs on traditional economic advice. Is the country paying the price?

Key takeaways

• Economists used to have a sort of special status in US policymaking; they were the consummate technocratic experts.
• But over the past decade, both parties have increasingly been less enamored of economists — and economic thinking in general.
• The reasons for this include Trump and Biden’s personalities, the rise of populist MAGA and progressive factions, plus structural changes in the economy and the information environment.
• The consequences: more policies that economists dislike on the merits like tariffs and price controls — and also more badly designed policies that simply haven’t taken economic analysis into account.
• Economists will only regain influence if political elites think they can help solve major problems, but right now they’re somewhat at a loss regarding voters’ current top concern — high prices.

The US’s two major parties can agree on one thing: They don’t have much use for economists anymore.

President Joe Biden ignored economists’ warnings about the risks of inflation. President Donald Trump dismissed economists’ arguments against his tariffs. And now, rising Democrats are backing price controls, even though mainstream economists aligned with both parties say they typically backfire.

Economists’ way of thinking has fallen out of favor among the political class more broadly. The right has embraced Trump’s zero-sum worldview and lost faith in expertise generally. Many progressives have rejected economists’ fundamental focus on trade-offs and the unintended consequences of policy interventions. Both sides are down on the free market.

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