Economics focus

摘要

Figures lie, as everyone knows, and liars figure. That should make economists especially suspect, since they rely heavily on statistics to try and resolve a wide range of controversies. For example, does a rise in the minimum wage put people out of work? Are stockmarket returns predictable? Do taxes influence whether a company pays dividends? In recent years, helped by cheaper, more powerful computers, and egged on by policymakers anxious for their views, economists have analysed reams of statistics to answer such questions. Unfortunately, their guidance may be deeply flawed. Two economists, Deirdre McCloskey of the University of Illinois, and Stephen Ziliak of Roosevelt University, think their colleagues do a lousy job of making sense of figures, often falling prey to elementary errors. But their biggest gripe is that, blinded by statistical wizardry, many economists fail to think about the way in which the world really works.