TL;DR: when it comes to technical expertise, our problem is more a lack of technical literacy than absence of experts. Think about it as analogy with other sciences.
I work with lots of economists (some of them trained in top graduate programs), for a government in a developing country, and I can’t help thinking this proposal is a bit naïve. I’m pretty sure our problem is not that we lack economists, or that the President does not receive expert advice, but that they are seldom listened to—unless they confirm what the relevant stakeholders want. And, like in natural sciences, journalists will often find someone they can refer to as an expert in the field, but people are not able to assess what they say, unless their conclusions are stated in very simple terms, usually in a confirmatory tone. So probably our problem is more a lack of overal economics literacy—and not more experts.
On the other hand, I can say that things have actually been getting better in some sense in the last few years—I observe that basic literacy in economics have been improving in the media and among educated people from other fields. And yet, this has not led to better policy; part of it is that economic development is hard (as I have argued elsewhere), or that the causality here runs the other way around (i.e., people have been learning more about economics because we have dealt with recessions)… but then you also have the whole soldier vs. scout mindset all back again—even educated people will look for info to confirm their biases.
To be clear: I’m certainly not against training more economists from developing countries in US top graduate programs (quite the opposite: sometimes I think the best thing we can do around here is to send bright students away), but I don’t think that’s the bottleneck in economic development (in comparison to other hypothesis), nor that it’d more efficient than other policies concerning education in economics that are likely less expensive and have a broader scope—such as economic classes for youngsters, or funding more economists in these countries, or sending experts from top univerties to teach there, etc.
I don’t think that’s the bottleneck in economic development
I think it’s too simplistic to say there’s a single bottleneck.
such as economic classes for youngsters, or funding more economists in these countries, or sending experts from top univerties to teach there, etc.
The latter two seem consistent with my proposal. Part of the problem is that there aren’t many economists in developing countries, hence the need to train more. And ASE does bring experts to teach at their campus.
TL;DR: when it comes to technical expertise, our problem is more a lack of technical literacy than absence of experts. Think about it as analogy with other sciences.
I work with lots of economists (some of them trained in top graduate programs), for a government in a developing country, and I can’t help thinking this proposal is a bit naïve. I’m pretty sure our problem is not that we lack economists, or that the President does not receive expert advice, but that they are seldom listened to—unless they confirm what the relevant stakeholders want. And, like in natural sciences, journalists will often find someone they can refer to as an expert in the field, but people are not able to assess what they say, unless their conclusions are stated in very simple terms, usually in a confirmatory tone. So probably our problem is more a lack of overal economics literacy—and not more experts.
On the other hand, I can say that things have actually been getting better in some sense in the last few years—I observe that basic literacy in economics have been improving in the media and among educated people from other fields. And yet, this has not led to better policy; part of it is that economic development is hard (as I have argued elsewhere), or that the causality here runs the other way around (i.e., people have been learning more about economics because we have dealt with recessions)… but then you also have the whole soldier vs. scout mindset all back again—even educated people will look for info to confirm their biases.
To be clear: I’m certainly not against training more economists from developing countries in US top graduate programs (quite the opposite: sometimes I think the best thing we can do around here is to send bright students away), but I don’t think that’s the bottleneck in economic development (in comparison to other hypothesis), nor that it’d more efficient than other policies concerning education in economics that are likely less expensive and have a broader scope—such as economic classes for youngsters, or funding more economists in these countries, or sending experts from top univerties to teach there, etc.
I think it’s too simplistic to say there’s a single bottleneck.
The latter two seem consistent with my proposal. Part of the problem is that there aren’t many economists in developing countries, hence the need to train more. And ASE does bring experts to teach at their campus.