Thread by @DinaPomeranz

Just started digging in the new book by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee. Will share some quotes from the intro.

"What the most recent [economics] research has to say, it turns out, is often surprising, especially to those used to the pat answers coming out of TV "economists" and high school textbooks.

"The professional consensus of economists (when it exists) is often systematically different from the views of ordinary citizens."

Example from the US:
"Economists were (much) more in favor of raising federal taxes(97.4% of economists, compared to 66% of regular Americans)."

"We need to understand what undermines trust in economist. Part of the answer is that there is plenty of bad economics around.

Those who represent "economists" in public discourse -chief economist of Bank X or Firm Y- are often primarily spokespersons for their firms' interests"

"Another big factor that contributes to the trust gap is that academic economists hardly ever take the time to explain the often complex reasoning behind their more nuanced conclusions."

"There are of course those who do speak out, but they tend to be, with important exceptions, those with the strongest opinions and the least patience for engaging with the best work in modern economics."

"The world is a sufficiently complicated and uncertain place that the most valuable thing economists have to share is often not their conclusion, but the path they took to reach it - the facts they knew, the way they interpreted those facts, the remaining sources of uncertainty."

"Economists are not scientists in the way physicists are, and they often have very little absolute certainty to share."

"This means economists often get things wrong. We will no doubt do so many times in this book."

"What is dangerous is not making mistakes, but to be so enamoured of one's point of view that one does not let facts get in the way. To make progress, we have to constantly go back to the facts, acknowledge our errors, and move on."

"What does the best economics of today tell us about fundamental issues our societies are grappling with? We describe how today's best economists think about the world; not just their conclusions, but also how they got there"

"On any single issue we will cover in the book, you may well come to different conclusions than we do. We hope to persuade you not reflexively to agree with us, but to adopt a little bit of out methods and share some parts of our hopes ans fears."

Looking forward to reading the rest of this book! It covers a wide area of topics ranging from migration to global warming, trade wars, discrimination, taxation, universal basic income and corruption.

Last sentence of the book:

"The call for action is not just for academic economists - it is for all of us who want a better, saner, more humane world. Economics is too important to be left to economists."