Who is the best economist?

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Certainly an interesting choice. A heterodox economist with religious influences.


Apparently you like labor economics. Interesting. What I find also interesting is that David Card is not known much for political muckraking or anything of that nature like most of the other options selected. Although, he is still noted for making studies on politically oriented topics.

I would have to say my preference in econ leans towards labor, yes. And I would have to agree with your observation. I think the manner in which Card presents his research may have something to do with that.

You seem to have a lot of knowledge of economics. Is it an interest or are you studying it in school?

Ok. Well, I just found it interesting as it was more reflective of knowledge in the field than most display as most people picked a favorite pundit who may not really have much in their name as a theorist compared to others. I did not know you were a grad student when I typed that up.

Me? I know most of what I know through it being an interest. Only recently have I started studying it in school.

Because this thread is pretty much dead.... or I thought it was. I would pick Milton Friedman as the best economist in my opinion. At least as one of the ones who is up there. This is partially a selection of ideology as I believe that Friedman's defense of markets is incredibly important. However, the man is undoubtedly one of the most revolutionary modern economists given his ideas such as his argument for monetarism, his view on the causes of the Great Depression, the critique of the phillips curve as not providing a long run trade off, and his defense of the price system/market mechanism. He also influenced policy in a great manner through this. I am definitely not as extreme as his politics are though.

Screw economics, I want econophysics! And evolutionary economics... my favorite economist hasn't yet been invented, all the traditional economists have political agenda and many are class/caste market protectionists.

There can be no free market and there never will be a free market, the market we have now is a mixed economy. Many economists are divorced from the real world, thats my problem with them, they are the least rigorous of all sciences. Economics is not like say physics or chemistry, economics would rank at the bottom of the pile since economics rubs up against ideology, social order and cultural values.

Incentives matter yes, but perverse incentives are rampant, take one look at CEO pay increases and you know that markets devolve into corruption very quickly without oversight. Right now we have cartels and oligopolies, we are far way from free market ideology.

The best economist is the one that eliminates war and poverty permanently. He doesn't exist, all we have are half-baked ones at the moment.

Econophysics and evolutionary economics are disciplines of the subject of economics. Well, favorite economist isn't a matter of ideal but rather given the options, which would you rate highest. Many traditional economists have a political agenda, I would imagine that quite a few really do not want to do much more than interpret data.

Perfect free market? Well, given the definition that you would like to use then the only system that would qualify would be anarcho-capitalist. Economists actually do a lot with data and interpreting it and to call them divorced from the world seems a bit of a harsh criticism. Economics is the least rigorous because it is the least similar to the others. Run an economic experiment for me with a control group, with an experiment group and with all else truly equal. Can that be done? No. Economists are stuck with a world with enough variables to kill a cow and forced to read through them. You are right that they have a greater influence by ideology and ideologues but at the very least we can recognize that every ideology promotes its own economic views.

Not necessarily, some are a matter of corruption other economists have argued that this is merely a matter of firm sizes and increased competition for top performers. Firms have gotten larger in some ways and CEO bidding now occurs more frequently meaning that possible losses due to bad leadership can be larger and CEOs are now more capable of getting what they can do. This is not to say that CEOs are just getting what they deserve, however, corruption alone cannot explain it all. We have more oligopolies than cartels and probably more monopolistic competition than both but that really does not interfere with anyone's ideas. The government subsidies and regulations are further away from free market ideology than that. Really though, market ideologues do not argue that all market structures are perfect competition.
The best economist must exist. We are aiming at an actual best, not some theoretical messiah. If you want a man to eliminate poverty though then you might want to look at Jeffrey Sachs, the man is committed to it. Really though, poverty rates have been declining. As I have stated before worldwide inequality according to some studies is on the decline, and the first world nations are much richer as well.