Noah Smith, Columnist

Economics Gets a Presidential Demotion

First, the financial crisis. Now, Trump won't include the head of the Council of Economic Advisers in his Cabinet.

February 14, 2017 at 1:00 PM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

Once upon a time, presidents had economic advisers.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/bloomberg

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The question of who Donald Trump will choose to head his Council of Economic Advisers now has an answer of sorts: It doesn’t really matter. The CEA chairman will no longer be included in the president’s cabinet. Economics has officially received a demotion.

Instead of simply deriding the administration as economically illiterate, we should look at this decision as part of a broader trend -- the waning of economists’ prestige and influence.