There are many stereotypes about economists. Two are common. The first is that all we think about and study is money. The second is that economists are more selfish than the average person.
Both stereotypes are false. My wife, who is not an economist herself but has been married to an economist for almost forty-one years, has an excellent response to the first statement. When people find out I’m an economist and say, “Oh, he must study money,” she says, “No, he studies human behavior.” »
But I want to focus on the second statement because I think it’s the opposite of the truth. My observation is that the average economist is less selfish than the average person and there is good reason for that: the study of economics leads us to think about consequences beyond the obvious ones. Furthermore, the scientific literature that some say shows that students who learn economics become selfish does not actually show this.
These are the first 3 paragraphs of my latest Hoover article, “The economy is not selfish“, Define ideasMay 30, 2024.
Later in the article, I discuss a controversy that arose a few years ago over some academic work that, according to one of the co-authors, falsely demonstrated that economics students were more selfish than the other students.
Read it the totality.
