Tag Archives: engineer

From physicists to engineers to meds to plumbers: Esther Duflo rediscovering the lost art of economics @ASSA2017

Posted on January 7, 2017 by

“The economist as plumber” Yesterday, Esther Duflo gave the American Economic Association Richard T. Ely lecture (edit: the full video of the lecture is now online). The gist of her talk was that economists should think as themselves more as … Continue reading →

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Economics as engineering III: Carnegie stories

Posted on March 24, 2014 by

Episode I and Episode II; Background chronology of economics at Carnegie. The “economics and engineering” line of argument is part of economists’ rhetoric. While they’ve used it primarily as a metaphor to describe their practices (formalization, modeling, market design, problem solving, policy expertise), historians … Continue reading →

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The rise of economics as engineering II: the case of MIT

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

Edit 2015: since this post was written, a collective volume on the history of economics at MIT has been published. Free drafts of some  chapters: Roy Weintraub’s introduction to the volume; my survey of economics at MIT, 1941-1973; Weintraub on MIT’s openness to … Continue reading →

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The rise of economics as engineering I : setting the scene

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

The rise of the economist as engineer is, economists and historians say, an essential characteristic of the development of economics in the postwar period. In 2006, Greg Mankiw wrote a much commentedpaper in which he argued that one brand of macroeconomics (neokeynesian) … Continue reading →

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A chronology of economics at Carnegie (in progress)

Posted on April 23, 2013 by

To illustrate the previous post on the difficulties in putting together a chronology, here is tentative chronology of economics at Carnegie. It’s still in process, and links, sources and entries will be updated as I research. It reflects my general interest … Continue reading →

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