How Economists Should Respond to Trumpian Disdain for Experts

Abstract

The models that the economics profession considers acceptable, particularly their assumptions regarding the precision with which we can know the future, create insuperable obstacles to formulating a rational response to the disdain for experts that President Donald Trump nourishes and exploits. This becomes clear from a critical discussion of the use of prevailing models to analyze the consequences of the 2017 tax overhaul. The profession would benefit from a novel approach, applied here to understanding stock-price movements, that recognizes that economists—like everyone else—face unforeseeable change about the future. Acknowledging the inherent limits of what we can know about the future would go a long way toward restoring public trust in what economists’ knowledge can actually contribute to policymaking.