Symposium on Economists as Policy Advocates

Abstract

hese comments by people who use economics but are not "doing economics" originated in a conversation between me and my colleague, Cliff Winston.We were commenting on the blissful unawareness among leading academic economists of a particular piece of rather bad economics that was threatening to result in extremely costly, welfare-reducing legislation.While economists were busily engaged in important intellectual work of academic interest, men and women of affairs were going about their business, dealing with matters on which economists could constructively comment, often without the contribution of economists.What could economists do differently, Winston and I wondered, that might increase the usefulness of their activities to people who either were not trained in economics or did not have the time to keep up with journals and working papers or to attend conferences?The most useful approach, we both agreed, was not to elicit more economist-bashing screeds from people who had one brand or another of axe to grind.Better to invite people who knew economists, worked with them, and generally liked them to tell us what we might do differently to increase our effectiveness.This brief symposium, with contributions from a legislator, a former presidential adviser, and a journalist, is the result.Some of the advice from these three knowledgeable users of what professional economists do is hortatory; some is cautionary; and not all of it seems entirely consistent.Congressman Lee Hamilton reminds economists that sophisticated jargon and convoluted technical shorthand learned in graduate school must be set aside if one wants to communicate with politicians (and most others, he might •

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