Mohamed A. El-Erian , Columnist

Why Innovation Tends to Bypass Mainstream Economics

The discipline is divorced from real-world relevance and has lost credibility.

April 27, 2018 at 6:00 AM UTC

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”

He failed to adapt.
Photographer: Mark Wilson/Hulton Archive

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This article was adapted from a speech given at the InvestmentNews “Innovation Summit” in New York, where the author received an “Icons and Innovators” award.

Mainstream economics hasn’t done well in recent years, failing to predict major shifts that have caused significant damage to society. This breakdown sheds light on a more general question: Why have certain fields and activities been unable to benefit sufficiently from innovation?