Economists Contemplate Life on the Outs

President-elect Donald Trump has so far named exactly one person with an economics doctorate to a prominent post in his administration, outspoken China critic Peter Navarro of the University of California at Irvine. Navarro, who will be heading a new White House entity called the National Trade Council, may well be the last.

That, at least, was the operating assumption of a lot of the economists who gathered in Chicago for the annual meeting last weekend of the American Economic Association and various affiliated organizations.1483994934815 After a panel discussion featuring former high-level economic advisers to both Republican and Democratic presidents, for example, someone in the audience asked if there was a stigma among “top-level economists” against working for Trump.