The American Prospect, April 2023
You can tell two stories about what has happened to the economics profession in this century. In the first story, academic economics has changed, significantly and for the better. Economists are less imprisoned by the unreal assumptions of models and more committed to real-world inquiry. Those with once-heretical views have been welcomed into the profession.
In the second story, change has come mainly around the edges. The heterodox thinkers doing important work are for the most part not in elite economics departments or top economics journals. Economics is still substantially captive to the use of abstruse models and ever more elaborate equations. And the teaching of economics, especially to undergraduates and first-year grad students, is depressingly familiar.
