There are quite a few stereotypes about economists. Two are frequent. The primary is that every one we take into consideration and research is cash. The second is that economists are extra egocentric than the common individual.
Each stereotypes are mistaken. My spouse, who will not be herself an economist however has been married to at least one for nearly forty-one years, has an excellent reply to the primary declare. When individuals discover out that I’m an economist after which say, “Oh, he should research cash,” she solutions, “No, he research human conduct.”
However I wish to give attention to the second declare as a result of I believe it’s the alternative of the reality. My statement is that the common economist is much less egocentric than the common individual and that there’s a great purpose for it: the research of economics causes us to consider penalties past those which are apparent. Furthermore, the scholarly literature that some individuals suppose reveals that college students who be taught economics turn into egocentric doesn’t really present that.
These are the opening 3 paragraphs of my newest Hoover article, “Economics Isn’t Egocentric,” Defining Concepts, Might 30, 2024.
Later within the piece, I talk about an argument that broke out a number of years in the past about some educational work that one of many co-authors claimed, incorrectly, demonstrated that economics college students are extra egocentric than different college students.
Learn the entire thing.
