If we’re serious about changing the world, we need a better kind of economics to do it | Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee

The pursuit of rapid growth won't solve the huge challenges we face. A more honest, humane approach is the answer

" Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee are joint winners of the 2019 Nobel prize in economic sciences

In 2017, a poll in the UK asked: "Whose opinion do you trust the most when they talk about their field of expertise?" Nurses came first - 84% trust them. Politicians came last. Economists were second from bottom on 25%.This trust deficit is mirrored by the fact that the consensus of economists (when it exists) is often systematically different from the views of ordinary citizens. The Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago regularly asks a group of about 40 prominent academic economists their views on core economic topics. Working with the economist Stefanie Stantcheva, we ran a survey: we selected 10 of the questions that were asked of the Booth panel and put them to 10,000 Americans.

On most of these issues, our respondents were sharply at odds with economists. For example, every single member of the Booth panel disagreed with the proposition that "imposing new US tariffs on steel and aluminium will improve Americans' wellbeing". Only a third of our respondents shared their view. And the gap is not only because people are not informed of what economists think: telling them does not seem to change their opinion one bit.

Economists are often too wrapped up in models and methods, and sometimes forget where science ends and ideology begins

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