Economists Have Been Demoted in Washington. That’s a Bad Idea.
Academic economists have received a demotion. The Trump administration has been filling out its cabinet and, unlike in the Obama administration, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers will not be part of it.
.. Instead, they arise from a belief that this move will rob the policy-making process of a particular kind of expertise and, worse, contribute to insularity and bias.
.. But don’t confuse business acumen with economic analytics. You surely wouldn’t conflate the two in one direction: Would you ask an academic economist without business experience to run a company?
.. What would the reduced job opportunities do to people who have made the military their profession? What would happen to the economies of the towns that surround Army bases? What would the fiscal consequences be, such as the cost of early retirement or severance packages that might need to be paid as part of a downsizing?
.. Critics of Mr. Feldstein complained. Lawrence A. Kudlow, who had been chief economist of Office of Management and Budget earlier in the Reagan administration, said of Mr. Feldstein: “There’s always been the suspicion that he’s playing to Harvard, the Charles River crowd, that he’s more interested in protecting his academic integrity than the president’s programs.”
Yes, academics fret about what their peers think, just as other people do. In this case, it’s a good thing. It is important to have someone in the cabinet who is more interested in protecting academic integrity than in protecting business interests or the president’s image.