There are quite a few stereotypes about economists. Two are frequent. The primary is that each one we take into consideration and research is cash. The second is that economists are extra egocentric than the common individual.
Each stereotypes are mistaken. My spouse, who just isn’t herself an economist however has been married to 1 for nearly forty-one years, has an important reply to the primary declare. When individuals discover out that I’m an economist after which say, “Oh, he must study money,” she solutions, “No, he studies human behavior.”
However I wish to give attention to the second declare as a result of I believe it’s the other of the reality. My remark is that the common economist is much less egocentric than the common individual and that there’s motive for it: the research of economics causes us to consider penalties past those which can be apparent. Furthermore, the scholarly literature that some individuals assume exhibits that college students who study economics turn out to be egocentric doesn’t truly present that.
These are the opening 3 paragraphs of my newest Hoover article, “Economics Isn’t Selfish,” Defining Concepts, Could 30, 2024.
Later within the piece, I focus on an argument that broke out a number of years in the past about some educational work that one of many co-authors claimed, incorrectly, demonstrated that economics college students are extra egocentric than different college students.
Learn the entire factor.
