"Dissident economists fight for niche in discipline"

[Bradford DeLong]

>[From the Chronicle of Higher Education]
>
>From the issue dated January 24, 2003
>
>Taking On 'Rational Man'
>Dissident economists fight for a niche in the discipline
>
>By PETER MONAGHAN
>
>How do you start a fire under a huge wet blanket? A faction of 
>disgruntled economists says that is their predicament.
>
>Their efforts to open the field to diverse views are smothered, they 
>say, by an orthodoxy -- neoclassical economics and its derivatives 
>-- that is indulgently theoretical and mathematical in its 
>aspiration to be more "scientific" than any other social science.
>
>Although it is inadequate to explain human behavior, they say, that 
>brand of economics dominates the discipline. Its practitioners 
>decide what work deserves notice by controlling what is published in 
>the field's prestigious journals. And with strongholds at leading 
>research universities and a Nobel awarded in the field, most 
>mainstream economists are too proud of their profession to even 
>notice these puny insurgents. ...
>
>Despite the power of the orthodoxy, the naysayers are numerous. 
>While the American Economic Association has some 22,000 members, the 
>30-odd groups under the umbrella of the International Confederation 
>of Associations for Pluralism in Economics have American memberships 
>totaling more than 5,000.
>
>The confederation's pained statement of purpose laments that most of 
>its members' interests, such as exploitation and inequitable income 
>distribution, have been "defined out" of economics.

News to Paul Krugman. News to me too.

I agree there is a huge Blight centered on Chicago where things are 
pretty bad. But I would have thought that the tide was turning--after 
all, this is a discipline that gives its highest prices to Vernon 
Smith, Danny Kahneman, and Matt Rabin...

Brad