How to Push Back Against Fake Economics

“Fake News” is a charge that U.S. President Donald Trump routinely levels at mainstream news outlets reporting truths he prefers not to hear. So when economists cry foul -- complaining about blasphemy and quackery among would-be practitioners -- our first instinct should be a little skepticism about the charge of Fake Economics. Isn’t this just a famously insular and recently maligned profession simply closing ranks?

Alas, no. Since the crisis, academics have, of course, faced a torrid backlash, starting with the accusation of having failed to predict the crash. These criticisms now span from claims that economists should learn more history and use fewer formulas to arguments that they should be less ideological and more interested in the “real world.” Indeed, many of the very best economists and commentators have argued that the “dismal science” needs a radical rethink: The Financial Times’s Martin Wolf recently offered an authoritative summary of the discipline’s main failings.