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Overall, it won't surprise you, I agree with this defense of economics by Larry Summers. It's really important to realize that most of the bad stuff in recent policy, like austerity, the debt obsession, and tax-cut mysticism, came from non economists 1/ washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…
Some theory has gone wrong; but in the very area where economists get the most grief, macro, basic textbook economics has done very well (and vastly better than the instincts of businessmen and politicians) 2/ nytimes.com/2018/09/16/opi…
But Brad DeLong also has a point: there has been a disturbing willingness of economists to pander to politicians, mainly on the right -- and they don't seem to pay any price for being wrong and (crucially) refusing to acknowledge error 3/ bradford-delong.com/2019/01/yes-th…
I'd also add that all the pandering seems to be in vain. Quite a few prominent conservative economists betrayed their professional ethics to support the Trump tax cut -- but the GOP still prefers the likes of Steve Moore 4/
