Scientists and Engineers

I have posted a new paper on my Harvard website. Here is how it begins:

The Macroeconomist as Scientist and Engineer

Economists like to strike the pose of a scientist. I know, because I often do it myself. When I teach undergraduates, I very consciously describe the field of economics as a science, so no student would start the course thinking he was embarking on some squishy academic endeavor. Our colleagues in the physics department across campus may find it amusing that we view them as close cousins, but we are quick to remind anyone who will listen that economists formulate theories with mathematical precision, collect huge data sets on individual and aggregate behavior, and exploit the most sophisticated statistical techniques to reach empirical judgments that are free of bias and ideology (or so we like to think).

Having recently spent two years in Washington as an economic adviser at a time when the U.S. economy was struggling to pull out of a recession, I am reminded that the subfield of macroeconomics was born not as a science but more as a type of engineering. God put macroeconomists on earth not to propose and test elegant theories but to solve practical problems. The problems He gave us, moreover, were not modest in dimension. The problem that gave birth to our field—the Great Depression of the 1930s— was an economic downturn of unprecedented scale, including incomes so depressed and unemployment so widespread that it is no exaggeration to say that the viability of the capitalist system was called in question.

This essay offers a brief history of macroeconomics, together with an evaluation of what we have learned. My premise is that the field has evolved through the efforts of two types of macroeconomist—those who understand the field as a type of engineering and those who would like it to be more of a science. Engineers are, first and foremost, problem-solvers. By contrast, the goal of scientists is to understand how the world works. The research emphasis of macroeconomists has varied over time between these two motives. While the early macroeconomists were engineers trying to solve practical problems, the macroeconomists of the past several decades have been more interested in developing analytic tools and establishing theoretical principles. These tools and principles, however, have been slow to find their way into applications. As the field of macroeconomics has evolved, one recurrent theme is the interaction—sometimes productive and sometimes not— between the scientists and the engineers. The substantial disconnect between the science and engineering of macroeconomics should be a humbling fact for all of us working in the field.

To avoid any confusion, I should say at the outset that the story I tell is not one of good guys and bad guys. Neither scientists nor engineers have a claim to greater virtue. The story is also not one of deep thinkers and simple-minded plumbers. Science professors are typically no better at solving engineering problems than engineering professors are at solving scientific problems. In both fields, cutting-edge problems are hard problems, as well as intellectually challenging ones.

Just as the world needs both scientists and engineers, it needs macroeconomists of both mindsets. But I believe that the discipline would advance more smoothly and fruitfully if macroeconomists always kept in mind that their field has a dual role.

Update: Economist Arnold Kling comments on the paper at his blog.