Noah Smith, Columnist

How Economists Can Stay Relevant Under Trump

Experts have been shut out of the new administration, but the field still can make a contribution.

January 10, 2017 at 8:13 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.

It could be worse.
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Economists are going to have to approach things a bit differently if they want to stay relevant in the Trump age. Political economy research is going to become more important. Some humility wouldn't hurt. And they should look someplace other than the federal government to test their ideas.

This is what I took away from this past weekend's American Economic Association’s annual conference, where I heard a panel with five Nobel-winning economists on the topic of “Where is the world economy headed?” The consensus was that Donald Trump’s policies may put the U.S. economy in danger: