Pris och skamvrå för nationalekomer

Hoppsan, det blev något fel här ... trots att vi har tänkt så bra!

De kritiska nationalekonomerna på Real World Economics Review Blog har utlyst nomeringar av:

• De tre ekonomer som tidigast och mest övertygande varnade för den globala ekonomiska härdsmältan, samt
• De tre ekonomer som mest bidragit till denna olycka.

Jag antar att konkurrensen kan bli hårdare vad det gäller den andra gruppen, den som skall nomineras till The Ignoble Price in Economics. (Obs. De skriver Noble, inte Nobel - hoppas det beror av att de har uppfattat skillnaden.)

Här är hela motiveringen:

It is accepted fact that the economics profession through its teachings, pronouncements and policy recommendations facilitated the GFC (Global Financial Collapse). We also know that danger signs became visible long before the event and that some economists (those with their eyes on the real-world) gave public warnings which if acted upon would have averted the human disaster.

With other learned professions entrusted with public confidence, such as medicine and engineering, it is inconceivable that their professional bodies would not at the very least censure members who had successfully persuaded governments and public opinion to ignore elementary safety measures, so causing epidemics and widespread building collapses.

To date, however, the world’s major economics associations have declined to censure the major facilitators of the GFC or even to publicly identify them. This silence, this indifference to causing human suffering, constitutes grave moral failure. It also gives license to economists to continue to indulge in axiom-happy behaviour. Nor has the economics establishment offered recognition to those economists who were not taken in by fads and fashion and whose competence, if listened to, would have prevented the collapse.

These two silences reveal a continuing moral crisis within the economics profession . The Ignoble and Noble Prizes for Economics are being offered as small first steps towards a cure.

Jojo, det är många figurer inblandade här som personifierar en fortgående moralisk kris.