Heske van Doornen, Author at

New Thinking in the News

This week’s recommended reads illuminate our discussions on the COVID19 crisis, its economic impact, and the quality of governments’ policy responses:

1 | The Race Between Economics and COVID19 in Project Syndicate, by Mohamed El-Erian

“For years, the economics profession has suffered from a stubborn reluctance to adopt a more multidisciplinary approach. But now that the COVID-19 pandemic is transforming economic life the world over, the profession has no choice but to leave its comfort zone.”

2 | Hospital Bailouts Begin—for Those Owned by Private Equity Firms in the American Prospect, by Eileen Appelbaum & Rosemary Batt

“After compelling hospitals to take on huge piles of debt through leveraged buyouts, private equity firms are poised to line up for taxpayer bailouts.”

3 | Why the Largest Stimulus in History Still Is Not Enough in Barron’s, by Roman Frydman

“As unreliable a guide to economic performance as many consider the stock market to be, this time the market has it right. It is obvious to investors that the problems we face stem from the public-health crisis—and cannot be cured by the “stimulus” package.”

4 | Economic numbers don’t matter right now. Government must help Americans get by in the Guardian by James K. Galbraith

“The economy cannot use stimulus when there is nothing to buy!”

5 | Why Coronavirus Could Hit Rural Areas Harder via Syracuse University, by Sharon Monnat.

“On the one hand, rural parts of the U.S. may be comparatively better off than urban places due to lower population density in rural areas. Lower population density reduces opportunities for virus spread. On the other hand, there are several features of rural populations and places that increase their risk of coronavirus-related mortality and other long-term health impacts.”

Every week, we share a few noteworthy articles that showcase the work of new economic thinkers around the world. Subscribe to receive these shortlists directly to your email inbox.

Meet Gonçalo Fonseca, creator of the history of economic thought website

Every so often, we highlight one of the senior scholars that has supported the Young Scholars Initiative as a mentor. We share their perspective on the discipline, their past experiences as a young scholar and their thoughts on New Economic Thinking. This time, we talk to Gonçalo Fonseca, Research Fellow at INET and creator of the ever-expanding History of Economic Thought Website. His research is on the intersection of the history of economic thought and economic theory.

Were you always interested in economics, even at a young age?

Not really; I did read a lot as a kid, but not necessarily economics. I grew up in Zambia, where people hardly had anything. But then at 18, I moved to New York, to attend the New School. I actually started off as an Africanist, doing African studies; mostly politics, history. There actually wasn’t much economics offered at the undergraduate level, but one way or another, African studies inevitably leads to questions of development. So when Gunseli Berik allowed me to sit in on her graduate-level economic development class, it blew my mind; she opened the door, and from then on, I was in. I delved deeper into economics, Alice Amsden and Tom Palley being perhaps the strongest influences among many great professors I have had. I continued my graduate studies at Johns Hopkins, studying under M. Ali Khan, then returned to the New School to finish my Ph.D. with Duncan Foley.

Was it tough being a young scholar?

In the early days, I did experience a lot of the same challenges that young scholars today express; economics is a restrictive discipline, and I felt that too. Young people tend to be very anxious, particularly about choices that might affect their careers. They tend to see their futures too narrowly, thinking that there is only one path, or that they have to do things one way, or everything will go wrong. But I managed to do my own thing. I ended up giving myself a lot of leeway; perhaps more so than other people. I let myself chase shiny objects; I let myself pursue my interests. Partly because nobody told me what the path was, or was supposed to be! So I just did what made sense to me. I allowed myself to get immersed in things. And I developed myself broadly by combining my New School education, where the teaching was more unconventional, with my training at Johns Hopkins.

What is your advice to young scholars?

Chase the shiny objects! By which I mean pursue things that really interest you, or that really irritate you, that you’re really furious about, or dissatisfied with. Really pursue them, so that they can become yours. As strange as it sounds, if you can find one small thing that’s really yours, you will always be the reference for it. Don’t be the nth person working on a generic problem. Be the point person working on the thing that really interests you, and become the expert in that. Economics may seem unforgiving, but it’s not. There is leeway! Even in conventional departments. It’s valued when someone is really knowledgeable about something that they care about. It takes a little courage to get there. But it’s worthwhile.

My experience with students is that they are very curious and engaged with the world. And it takes years to beat that out of them. So the key is to retain that curiosity and to follow it. Don’t let publications be the only metric that matters to you. Don’t make the publication the goal. Make the goal that you contribute to the field.

But don’t get mistaken. It’s chasing shiny objects, and it’s fun, but it’s hard work. I’m really trying to understand something. What people are trying to say. How they fit with others. All that is work; lots of not sleeping, and pain. It’s like building anything else.

A lot of it is going to corners you didn’t expect to. Topics you didn’t think you were interested in. Stuff you didn’t imagine you cared about. Realizing hold on, there’s something here. And poking at it, and then getting lost, overwhelmed, start bringing your own narrative on it; you make it yours. And there’s really something to learn from everyone.

As a general strategy, in order to understand something, you have to be able to explain in plain English. To reach that, you really have to go deep and try to get a perspective and understand how it fits in its context. It’s work, but it’s very pleasurable. Once you get a grip on it, you get the “ah..” But before that, you may be frustrated. I’ve made myself learn obscure math just to be able to understand something, in order to understand something related to that. And once you have it, you’ve made it yours. It’s an armament.

Your point touches on the importance of being able to explain something to others, on teaching!

Yes, I’ve been teaching economics as long as I’ve been learning economics. Once you’re teaching something, you can start to really understand it. Already in undergrad, we’d organize with classmates to teach each other. Then we TA’d, and taught entire courses. At that point, it is harder to cut corners. You can, but you’re not doing yourself any favors. Especially once you start teaching people who don’t have a background in the subject, it forces you to think about it systematically. And the more you work on that, the more it becomes yours. This is why teaching is vital.

And it doesn’t even matter what the topic is. I have taught everything from econometrics to philosophy, and every time, I am happy, because I get to learn something; there’s something to learn from everything.

Who is the best teacher you’ve ever had?

Ali Khan, at Johns Hopkins. He taught mathematical economics, which is something people can easily get lost in. And he was very systematic. So I took a lot of tips from how he teaches. And what I always keep in mind is that my students are not there for me; I’m there for them. A lot of them have made sacrifices to be able to study, and they deserve the best. You can make a big difference if you manage to inspire those who are taking their first economics course. Even if they do not end up being economists, their understanding of the economy, civically, is very important. Similarly, I love being a mentor to young scholars in YSI.

How did the History of Economic Thought Website come to be?

It was actually a favor…! Heilbroner was teaching a course at the New School, while I was at Johns Hopkins. He was assigning a lot of reading, much of which was actually available online; it was just that nobody had put anything together. These were the early days of the web.. 1997. So one of his students, who was a friend of mine, asked me if I could gather these readings in one place online. She knew nothing about coding and I didn’t either. But she asked me if I could figure it out, and I did! And then it grew. From excitement, and because once you’ve covered this person, you know you should also cover that person, and then you just keep going. It became a lot bigger than I thought.

It was pre-Wikipedia, so it was a new thing to let one piece link to another and then another. Which is fantastic, because it means things don’t have to be linear like a book. The purpose is for it to be non-linear, so that you can roam, see what thoughts connect with what theories, what mentors connect with what students, what approaches there are between various groups.

What makes the History of Economic Thought such a powerful field, for you?

Many reasons. For one, it’s beautiful. But more importantly, it really helps you understand the theory. It can help you understand why a theory developed one way or another. It can allow you to see things more clearly, and help you understand the reasons why it’s structured the way that is. Because economics is not leveled or settled. And it’s not just models! At the end of the day, economics is constructed by people. It’s driven by people, and the questions they have. Their interests, the relationships they have, whether those are relationships of mentorship or rivalry.

Sometimes, the math in economics obscures this. But math in economics is like the notes on the page for music. Music is what you hear from a violin. The notes on the page are not the music. So some people condemn mathematics. And they shouldn’t. You can’t get mad at the mathematics in economics, just like you can’t be mad at sheet music. You can only be mad at whether the tune sounds good or not. By studying the History of Economic Thought, you get to see the full picture. You hear the full tune; and then you can decide for yourself.

Take a look at Gonçalo’s History of Economic Thought website! If there is another new economic thinker that you’d like to see featured here, let us know! Share your thoughts in the comments below, or email us at contact@economicquestions.org

Building an Online Platform for a Global Community

The YSI website is one of a kind. Literally, because it’s being built from scratch by a small company in Copenhagen. Entropy Fox spends the majority of their time building on the online platform that supports our community. Every few weeks or months, the team will deploy an update to the site, sometimes changing a lot in the front-end, making it look better, sometimes changing a lot in the back-end, making it work better. Here’s a peak behind the scenes to show the work process, and a way for you to get more involved:

So how is it decided what gets built?

Determining what features get built is an exercise of impact vs time-required. When discussing new features, the YSI team assigns an impact score between 1 and 10. A feature with an impact score of 9 would be expected to serve as a big improvement to the community. But given the resource constraints we face, it is also important to take into account how much developer-hours a given feature requires. So aside from the impact score, a time-estimate is computed. Naturally, the features with the highest impact-to-time ratio represents the biggest bang for the buck. Those are the ones to put on the top of the list.

And what does ‘building’ look like?

Often times, the first step is a conversation in the INET office, where the YSI team will try to reach agreement on what a feature should do exactly. Recently, the “need to browse all upcoming projects in one place” turned into the need for a “Project Directory,” where users would be able to look through projects, searching by keyword, project type, date, location, and working group. Once there’s some level of clarity around the idea, the team will produce a visual mock-up of what they envision the feature to look like; essentially, a pdf file that shows what the website would look like if this feature were implemented.

That pdf goes to Entropy Fox, who will comment on the feasibility of the specific request, and may suggest modifications to enhance the efficiency of the build, and the experience of the user. With those modifications agreed upon, they turn to their code, and create first iterations of the feature on a parallel test site. YSI’s test site looks just like the real one, but is distinct in that its okay to make mistakes there, because there are no real users who could get hurt. That means it’s a good way to see the feature in action, and learn what needs improvement before bringing it out to the world. Once things look good on the test site, the same thing is deployed to the real one, and tada, the update is done!

I’m a user! How can I get involved?

If you’re a member of the YSI community, the YSI platform is being built to help you. It’s being created to help you connect to peers, do the research you want to do, and transform the discourse in economics. If you have ideas for new features, or would like to be involved in testing new features, let us know by filling the form below. This way, we can get in touch with you to hear about your ideas, or let you know when we could use your help to test the latest build. We are excited to hear from you!

Click here to supply ideas and help with testing!

How to Present your Work

Many of us have to do a lot of speaking over the course of our career. Being able to give an effective talk is a huge asset for any person, but for academics in particular. Opportunities hang on our ability to not just carry out great research but to talk about it. Here are three key points you can use to improve your presentations, whether you are explaining your Ph.D. to a group of peers, or you are addressing an auditorium full of people.

Tell a story

Many of us are tempted to structure our presentation the same way as we structure our paper. So, we present the literature, frame our approach as distinct, copy our equations into our slides, and write out our findings. But we are often better off with a presentation that frames our work as a story; this way, our audience is much more likely to take in and remember our ideas.

You may think your work doesn’t have a story, but Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, can help you find it. Writing and working with economists whose ideas are often buried under jargon, she knows how to pull out the narrative. In this video, Lynn explains to you how to do this yourself.

Manage your delivery

We can all think of a professor whose voice put us to sleep, no matter how interesting the underlying subject matter might have been. So, pitch, pace, and attitude is critical if you want to keep your audience engaged. Jackie Pocklington, Professor of Business and Technical English at Beuth University of Applied Sciences (and father of Jay Pocklington!) is full of great tips on this, including:

Make sure that YOU are the source of the information; not your slides.

This means only putting keywords on the slides, and using them as a teaser. Announce a page before clicking it, not after. Otherwise you end up telling people something they just read.

Watch the end of your sentences

Nerves or habits may cause the tone of our voice to rise at the end of our sentences. But this is not how we naturally speak. Therefore, correcting this to make sentences to go down at the end can make a dramatic difference to your delivery.

Drop the perfectionism.

Many of us feel that we need to deliver a perfect presentation; no mistakes, and nothing forgotten. But focusing all our attention on avoiding mistakes leaves little room to think about our delivery. Remember that when you’re an audience member, you don’t demand perfection either. If a speaker makes a mistake and corrects themselves to serve us well, we might even like them more.

Don’t underestimate the need for preparation

Some people seem like they can pull brilliant speeches out of thin air, but chances are that they have spent more time preparing than you think. The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking discusses various strategies for preparation, ranging from the memorization of every word, to talking from bullet points. All require careful preparation. Therefore, figure out what type of preparation strategy works for you, and make the time to carry it out; you owe it to your audience.

As with everything, the more you do it, the better you get. If you’re looking for a way to practice, the Young Scholars Initiative offers friendly audiences in a multitude of workshops and convenings every year. Moreover, keep an eye out on the calendar for an opportunity to present your work, and become the killer speaker you have the potential to be.

A New Chapter for Economic Questions

We are thrilled to announce that Economic Questions will serve the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) as its community blog.

YSI, an initiative of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, is a global community over graduate students, young professionals and researchers. YSI envisions economic thinking that is free of intellectual barriers, resonates with reality, and serves our global society.

To advance towards this mission, YSI is building a research community without the intellectual barriers that had stifled the economics discipline; a playground of ideas. Its members have never set a definition for New Economic Thinking. Instead, they are committed to a special approach: one in which economics is defined by the questions it seeks to answer, not by the method or analytical tool applied.

Members of YSI explore their questions in collaborative projects, such as workshops, conferences and online webinars. Participating in YSI projects provides the opportunity to develop one’s research interests, create partnerships with institutions in their field, and form lasting relationships; key ingredients to flourish as a new economic thinker.

With this approach, YSI has grown to one of the most important early career networks in the field. With 10000 members in 125 countries, the community now reaches far and wide. As of early 2020, YSI has 150 projects running across 21 working groups, each focusing on a different set of questions.

In a community where there is so much activity, and so many young scholars coming together, there is a vast amount of stories to be heard, experiences to be shared, and insights to be exchanged. With short articles on YSI’s members and activities, this is what economic questions will help to facilitate.

For those of you who are new to YSI, welcome to the community! If you are interested, you are invited to register on ysi.ineteconomics.org, and to explore the working groups and the projects they are doing.

For those of you who are already a part of YSI, welcome to Economic Questions! Please let us know what content you would be interested in seeing, if you have ideas you’d like to contribute, or new economic thinkers that you’d like us to feature. Feel free to comment on the articles, or contact us directly at contact@economicquestions.org

Meet Magali Brosio, a Young Scholar and Feminist Economist

Every so often, we highlight one of the members of the YSI community. We share their story, their aspirations, and what new economic thinking means to them. This time, we cover Magali Brosio, a young scholar from Argentina, with a wide range of professional and academic experience in feminist economics and beyond. In YSI, Magali is organizer for the Gender and Economics Working Group, and spearheads the YSI Inclusivity and Diversity Advisory Team.

What has your path been, as a young scholar?

When I was young I actually dreamt about being a surgeon! But when it was time to register for university, I ended up choosing economics. Partly because I was eager to learn from a variety of disciplines (such as history, philosophy, statistics) but mainly because I wanted to understand what was going on—in my country, in my region, and in the world. I wanted to understand the economic system and how to make things better. And I never regretted it!

Since then, it’s been a combination of academic and professional work in many countries. When I was still at the University of Buenos Aires, I started working as a research assistant for the leading employers’ organization, focusing on industrial and labor policy, Then, I moved to Turin (Italy) for a Master’s degree in Applied Labour Economics for Development. At that time, I became interested in gender and started working on that, mostly through a media platform that a co-founded called Economía Femini(s)ta.

Upon return to Argentina, I first worked for a think tank called CIPPEC, focusing on economic development. Later, I became a research consultant for UN Women. I then relocated to the US to work at the intersection of gender, human rights and economic policy in CWGL, a research center based at Rutgers University. Since 2017 I have been actively involved with the YSI Gender and Economics Working Group, first as a member and then as an organizer. Being able to discuss my research with young scholars from all over the world and hear about what others were doing, sparked in me the desire to go back to academia. This is why I am now in the UK, doing a PhD in Law at the University of Birmingham.

Although I am grateful for the path I took, it was not always easy. Not everyone viewed my “mixed background” (combining academic and non-academic experience) as a strength. When I decided to go back to the academic world, I faced some resistance when trying to prove the value of my non-academic work. But I still think that it was the right approach, both personally and professionally. What I learned outside the university actually contributed a lot to my development as a researcher. And I was fortunate enough to find a PhD program and supervisors that agree with me!

Who has influenced you along the way?

Many people! My peers at university, who spent long hours discussing a wide range of topics in economics sometimes taught me more than the classroom. But also my “superiors,” although I don’t really like that word. I have been fortunate to work with amazing professors, mentors, supervisors and bosses who took the time to teach me with patience and kindness, while respecting and valuing my knowledge and treating me like an equal. In particular, Corina Rodriguez Enriquez and Radhika Balakrishnan have been amazing mentors in my (ongoing) development as a feminist economist.

What is some of the most interesting research/work you have been able to do?

As a research assistant for UN Women, I contributed to their flagship report Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which allowed me to explore a wide array of topics, from gender-responsive budgeting to the impact of climate change on women living in rural areas. This was a steppingstone for me, as it helped me to gain expertise in feminist economics, and inspired my current research.

In my PhD, I now study the participation of women from the Global South in global governance, using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a case study. As legal indicators play an increasingly important role in development, I am interested in the barriers that women face when trying to engage in discussions deemed as “technical” and “nonpolitical.” I am curious how their priorities and needs are reflected in the current SDG targets and indicators.

What do you hope to see more of in the economic discipline, or what does New Economic Thinking mean to you?

In the first place, I would like to see a better understanding of how gender relations operate in the economic system. Despite the important developments within feminist economics, most of the economic analyses still ignore the gendered effects of economic phenomena or policies.

Secondly, I’d really like to see more interdisciplinary research. I’ve always thought this and now that I’m working as a postgraduate researcher within the Law School in my University, I know for a fact that there are so many valuable tools for our work that fall outside the scope of what we traditionally consider “Economics”. I have personally seen the benefits of taking courses across disciplines and institutions, of discussing research with those of different backgrounds, and attending conferences from different disciplines, and I hope that will become more common practice.

Contact Magali Brosio via the Young Scholars Directory

Meet Arjun Jayadev, Senior Economist at INET

Every so often, we highlight one of the senior scholars that has supported the Young Scholars Initiative as a mentor. We share their perspective on the discipline, their past experiences as a young scholar and their thoughts on New Economic Thinking. This time, we talk to Arjun Jayadev, Senior Economist at INET and Professor at Azim Premji University in Bangalore. Arjun works on Macroeconomics, the Economics of Power, Finance and Distribution.

How did you get involved in the subject of economics?

I would say somewhat by accident. I liked economics, I did well in economics, but I was planning on getting a master’s and return to India to become an IAS officer. But I got to grad school and unlike many people, I really enjoyed my first two years immensely. That was partly because I had done my undergraduate by correspondence, so I hadn’t had any teachers for economics there. So when I got to UMass Amherst, where we had fantastic teachers and a really amazing curriculum, I really started having a great time. Plus, it appealed to me that economics as a discipline is “on the edge of science, and on the edge of history”, as Hicks puts it. I really felt that at UMass. Also, there was a great openness and ability to do many different kinds of courses and adopt and explore different perspectives. So I took classes for about 4 years! And the path afterward turned out to be surprisingly smooth. I think partly because I came from heterodox school and there’s actually a demand for heterodox economists and not such a large supply, I had a number of offers. So the market really worked for me. And after grad school, I lucked out to be in a great department (UMass Boston). I did what I really wanted to do, and it never felt like I was chasing publications.

That is unusual! How do you explain the horror stories we hear from other people?

Partly, I think it depends on what kind of program you’re in. If you’re at a “top program”, you’re learning things at a very advanced level, which can be really tough and not seem relevant to the social issues you are interested in. But what is probably worse is if you’re at a place that is not a top program but is trying very hard to be one. Because then you’re constantly trying to emulate something which you’re never going to feel good enough at. I think those are the programs that really grind the graduate students; they make them jump through hoops. Which is awful not just during those two years, but also in the long run. Because having gone through that is what later makes people extremely resentful if you criticize their work or they feel that their work fails to explain the world. They come to feel that since they’ve gone through hell for it, it must be worth something. On top of that, they end up in a crowded field, where it’s difficult to be seen. Whereas if you’re willing to stand outside the mainstream, at a program that is not trying to compete with the top, your experience may be better, and you may actually be seen more easily. Of course, your chances of being ‘accepted’ in the economics mainstream is very low indeed, but that’s not the purpose of taking an alternative path anyway.

How do you see your role as teacher and mentor?

For me, it’s very important that the students feel like they are participants in the process, from very early on. I’m their guide, but I want them to feel responsible for the research; it needs to be their ideas and their sense of understanding. I also try to help them deal with the concept of prestige; many young people struggle with this. Students I have seen fall into a trap of constantly thinking about the way a job market paper is going to go, how people think of you, and get swamped with the corrosive hierarchy that’s associated with that. And then it becomes very hard to look at your paper as a genuine scientific inquiry. Instead, it becomes a vehicle to attain some kind of status, and of course that is determined by so many other things than the quality of your paper.

I also really enjoy teaching–especially undergraduates. Due to the incentive structures in the field, many people view teaching as something to get out of the way. But if you have a class of dozens of young students in front of you, that is actually a significant group of current and future academics to be distributing your work to, and something to take delight in.

What differences do you observe now between young scholars in India versus the US?

Significant differences, but perhaps most interestingly, in the way that they go about their work. The grad students that I meet in India tend to be closer to something real in the world than those in the US, in the sense that they are dealing with a concrete problem that they wish to understand (say, irrigation in a particular state) rather than the problem being an instantiation of a larger theoretical or empirical approach. In North America, I think the job market makes it such that you have to write a paper in a particular way so people are trained first in the general way of going about answering questions and the topic at hand is answered in that general framework. The flip side of that is that the technical training that you receive in the West is extremely strong. That skill is much stronger in the US than it is in India. And the intellectual center for economics is still in the US, which makes the flow of ideas really go only one way.

What are some of the challenges you see in the area of new economic thinking?

I do think one of the challenges is that those outside the mainstream have a tendency to remain insular and critical. Which is okay to an extent–critical perspectives are important–but the most exciting things I think are positive impulses, where you are pursuing interesting questions and gaining new insight about the world; I think the focus should be there.

Another issue is that in mainstream economics, at least for development, micro, and labor, there are things like identification, which people coalesce around as a technical way to prove mastery. It allows for a clear understanding of the problems that students can be taught to solve, and once they do that, they can be considered capable and certified. The equivalent is much harder in alternative frameworks. Students there are not always sure how to approach their work. I have seen people working very hard but not be able to produce because they were not sure what their “craft” really is. There are not a lot of models to emulate. So they often fall back to producing something that is primarily ‘critical’ which is less useful.

How do you see the discipline progressing? Would you encourage someone to enter?

There are some areas of economics that are still very problematic; where there seems to be pure self-referentiality and no engagement with the world. But others have made a lot of progress and are valuable. Fields like micro, development, or labor have become incredibly productive and useful in the past 20-25 years, and I would really encourage people to enter that-at any place. In general, there are a lot of interesting people you learn a lot from; many of whom were not widely known in my student years. Social media helps with this, though it is a double-edged sword. In terms of pedagogy, there is slow but meaningful change. In terms of the field, the aftermath of the continued economic and political crises since 2008 have led to many different voices coming through. Places like INET have allowed those people to surface, which certainly improves the climate for new people coming in. I feel very positive about that, and there is no doubt that at this moment in time is one in which economists can fulfill very important roles.

If there is a specific new economic thinker that you’d like to see featured here, let us know! Share your thoughts in the comments below, or email us at contact@economicquestions.org

Meet Lara Merling, a Young Scholar in Washington, DC

Every so often, we highlight one of the members of the YSI community. We share their story, their aspirations, and what new economic thinking means to them. This time, we cover Lara Merling, alumna of the Levy Economics Institute, co-founder of Economic Questions, and currently, Economic Research Officer at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Washington, DC. This spring, Lara is helping members of YSI come together in DC to host various workshops.

How did you wind up in economics?

Pavlina Tcherneva’s class on Money and Banking converted many students to economics, myself included. It made me realize how economics and particularly economic policy defines so much of our lives. And as I advanced, I realized the issues in the discipline itself. All economics is political, but the models in our textbooks manage to hide their assumptions, and present themselves as objective science. In my masters degree, I studied not just the neoclassical models, but also their critiques, and many alternative ideas and approaches. I was able to do research that shows the failures of neoclassical economics, along with the real human costs that it’s policies (such as austerity) bring about.

How is it to work at the intersection of research and policy making in DC?

As an Economic Research Officer in the Washington office of the ITUC, which represents over 200 million workers globally, I draw on the insights from my research to advocate at the IMF and World Bank for better and fairer policies for working people everywhere.

That said, it’s not without difficulty. Policy makers tend to uphold economics as a precise and objective science. In reality, there are politics behind every economic model, and we should not pretend otherwise. One may expect that policy makers are in a good position to understand that, but there is still a widespread tendency to stick with the most widespread models, label them as “sound economics” and use them to justify a political agenda; tricky business when people’s lives depend on it.

Furthermore, when it comes to translating research into policy, much of the caution expressed by academics around the certainty of their conclusions is lost when policymakers give in to the temptation to cherry-pick findings, and emphasize those that support their agenda. This way, nuanced findings with various limitations can quickly turn into something that appears to be a solid fact.

To make matters worse, institutions such as the IMF and World Bank continue to glorify neoclassical economists, despite their poor track record in terms of predicting real world events, and helping countries actually develop. But much of my professors, who for decades have been marginalized by these institutions, have persisted in their work and seen their predictions proven right. They have stood strong, and continue to put their energy towards an economics that works for society, not against it. And I can draw upon them for inspiration when things feel like an uphill battle.

What are your hopes and dreams?

I am working not just to further develop my perspectives on the policy failures of neoclassical economics, but also to contribute to alternative frameworks that can address the big challenges of our time. One of the approaches I focus on in my work is that of prioritizing full employment and sustainable growth. Making these explicit goals changes the game for economic policy making. They provide a lens through which to explore new solutions to the challenges of our time.

My hope is for a world in which all economists learn about and engage with a variety of schools of thought, and have to argue their positions based on evidence and logical arguments, rather than theories taken for granted. We should all be aware of the history of economics and understand the institutions that we encounter in the real world.

Contact Lara Merling via the Young Scholars Directory.