{"text":[[{"start":5.32,"text":"Am I an economist? Since completing my undergraduate and master’s degrees in economics, I’ve been in the Government Economic Service (briefly), been an economic researcher (less briefly) and written about economics (for ages). In Britain, no one ever questions the “economist” part of my identity, at least not to my face. But in America, as one of the tribe once matter-of-factly explained to me, I don’t count. I don’t have a PhD."}],[{"start":31.72,"text":"As one who falls into this grey zone, I roll my eyes when questions of who qualifies as an economist creep into the public debate. There is no economics licensing board. Whether used against America’s Jay Powell, a trade lawyer turned top central banker, or Britain’s Gary Stevenson, a YouTuber with a master’s in economics and strong views on tax, credentialism isn’t cool."}],[{"start":53.22,"text":"Still, many yearn for a definition. Partly that’s because economists have influence over public opinion. A study by Hans Sievertsen and Sarah Smith of the University of Bristol estimated that in America, seeing an expert economist’s view shifted the average person’s view by 0.2 points on a five-point scale. In Britain, trust in economists, already admittedly low, has improved since 2017 to reach 37 per cent of the public."}],[{"start":80.56,"text":"Think of economists as a guild whose members police who is allowed to join and what counts as true economics. By guarding the definition of economic expertise, they preserve their influence over the public and public policy."}],[{"start":92.56,"text":"The trouble with the stricter definitions is that they don’t really work. Portugal is unusual for having an industry association reserving the title for those with at least a university degree in the subject. In the US, where one really doesn’t have to have studied very much economics to major in it, requiring a postgraduate qualification makes more sense. But requiring an economics PhD would exclude several at the pinnacle of the profession. Some 13 of the 96 economics Nobel Prize winners wouldn’t qualify."}],[{"start":120.86,"text":"Discounting experience in paid work entirely feels silly. The economy exists outside of university walls — surely one can become a specialist later? That would bring in the 23 per cent of central bankers over the 2000s and 2010s who didn’t have an economics degree. But it would upset some others. Years after becoming one of the world’s top economic policymakers, in 2024 ECB chief Christine Lagarde was still denouncing economists as a distinct “tribal clique”."}],[{"start":152,"text":"The looser definitions come with challenges too. Economists are a diverse bunch, not easy to define from their assumptions or views. It’s a caricature to say that economists believe people are rational, utility-maximising agents, though in the words of Jean Tirole of the Toulouse School of Economics, they do tend to subscribe to the view that incentives and behaviour of individuals are the starting point for understanding groups. But there is no consistent translation of that into policy advice. Even price controls have found some high-profile supporters within the profession."}],[{"start":184.16,"text":"Defining economists by their methods risks being too narrow as well. Many use empirical tools to tease out causal relationships from imperfect data. But many don’t."}],[{"start":194.32,"text":"The vaguer the sniff test, the greater the risk that setting the boundaries of who counts as an economist descends into a nasty way of adjudicating intellectual disagreements. Denying someone the title of economist could be a lazy put-down, a signal that their ideas don’t deserve credibility. Easier to deliver such a rebuke than to make the effort to explain why a particular take is wrong."}],[{"start":214.92,"text":"Researchers have captured the tendency of economists to be suspicious of those outside the mainstream. Mohsen Javdani of Simon Fraser University and Ha-Joon Chang of the School of Oriental and African Studies surveyed economists around the world about whether they agreed with various statements, and randomly attributed some sources to mainstream thinkers (such as Adam Smith) and others to less mainstream ones (such as Karl Marx). The trained economists were more likely to disagree with a take they thought was coming from that second group."}],[{"start":244.72,"text":"As the sociologist Marion Fourcade has written, whereas in Britain economic authority is “more fluid and informally defined”, in America economic competence is “more firmly rooted in the possession of a specialist university degree”. Which explains my own identity crisis. As the competition for public policy influence continues, don’t expect the argument over who can claim the title to go away."}],[{"start":273.6,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1788432502_2286.mp3"}