Economics is what economists do

October 22, 2004
Opening Session of the Integrated Master Programme, Department of Economics, University of Freiburg im Breisgau, Freiburg im Breisgau

Summary

Drawing from personal experience at university, in government, in business and at a central bank, examples are given of what it means to be an economist. At university it means to teach and to research. In economics, as in other fields, success depends on publications, on selecting the right topics and placing them in refereed journals. When teaching, a professor should be able to take his students on a journey of learning that never ends.

When working for government, a different challenge arises. Politicians have a natural predisposi-tion to seek advice that is compatible with their political needs. Economists acting as civil ser-vants or as government advisers are quite naturally tempted to behave opportunistically. This will not pay since in the long term a serious loss of professional reputation is inevitable. Economists must not let themselves be carried away by a desire to please. The introduction of the euro serves as an example of how economists were able to fulfil the diverse expectations of politics and eco-nomics.

The challenges of working in business are exemplified by the story of a young economist entering a large multinational corporation. The complexity of a business organisation can be overwhelm-ing. Two conclusions can be drawn. The first is: the professional quality of the business econo-mist is important. But professional quality alone is not sufficient. Quality may easily be drowned by red tape. This leads to a second conclusion: every young economist confronted with bad man-agement has a choice. He can choose either ‘exit’ or ‘voice’. Both types of reactions can be fruit-ful. To speak up may pay because business corporations are living organisations that benefit from criticism.

As regards central banking, the nature of the challenge is different again. Often central banking is likened to an art. Economists have to excel professionally and, at the same time, they need to understand what drives the moods out in the markets. Economists have to understand the limits of their models in order to be able to identify the weakness of their results. They also have to un-derstand what is actually going on in the economy despite imperfect statistical data. Judgment is needed. – All in all, the real issue is not so much what an economist does as how she or he does it.

Download file now

The file can be downloaded with the button below.

Additional files

Related content

Author(s)

  • Niklaus Blattner
    Vice Chairman of the Governing Board

Your settings

Required: These cookies (e.g. for storing your IP address) cannot be rejected as they are necessary to ensure the operation of the website. These data are not evaluated further.
Analytics: If you consent to this category, data such as IP address, location, device information, browser version and site visitor behaviour will be collected. These data are evaluated for the SNB's internal purposes and are kept for two years.
Third-party: If you consent to this category, third-party services (used, for example, to add social multimedia content to the SNB's website) will be activated which collect personal data, process these data, disclose them abroad - worldwide - and place cookies. The relevant data protection regulations are linked in the 'Privacy statement for the website of the Swiss National Bank'.

Choose your preferred settings:

This website uses cookies, analytics tools and other technologies to provide requested features, content and services, to personalise the content shown, to provide links to social media, and to analyse the use of the website in anonymised form for the purposes of improving usability. Personal data are also disclosed abroad - worldwide - to video service providers and the analytics tools of these providers are used. More information is available under 'Manage settings'.