The paper describes a survey taken by graduate students at seven top-ranking economics programs. There is an enormous spread in opinions on questions such as: Is neoclassical economics relevant? Do economists agree on fundamental issues? Can fiscal policy be an effective stabilizer? Should the Fed maintain a constant growth rate of the money supply? (See below for results.)
For example, just over 50% of students agreed somewhat or strongly that Economists agree on fundamental issues, whereas 44% disagreed. These results were barely changed over 20 years -- is that a strong indicator of little progress in the field, at least as far as fundamental issues? ***
(Isn't whether economists agree on fundamental issues itself a fundamental issue? If economists do not agree on whether economists agree on fundamental issues, isn't there an issue? ;-)
See the paper for more, or the book, which contains transcripts of interviews conducted at each of the schools. Some parts of the interviews are very funny, like when Colander asks the students Have you ever read any older economists, like Hayek, Robinson or Keynes? The discussion of sociology vs economics is also quite amusing.
The most tragic (yet deepest) question in the interviews is Do economists test theories? Colander obviously understands what he is asking but few of the students seem to.
In the survey results below, "Then" refers to an earlier survey done in the 1980s, "Now" refers to one done around 2002. Click below for larger images.
*** So as not to appear to be an ugly physicist, let me note that we have yet to find the Higgs particle, haven't discovered what the dark matter is but rather discovered a new mysterious substance called dark energy that no one can explain, and still don't know how quantum gravity works. I might also add that physicists disagree about the foundations / interpretation of quantum mechanics, although we don't disagree about the fact that we disagree :-)
