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> Economics is mostly microeconomics. Please elaborate. Macroeconomics and econometrics are very much a part of economics.

• barrkel 11y ago
  I didn't say they weren't part of the discipline. What I meant is that most professional economists are not making prognostications about the economy; they are typically analysing costs and benefits at several degrees of indirection, developing models from data, and more generally optimizing choices - economics is the study of choice. What I'm particularly arguing against is the idea that the average economist is some kind of marketplace weather forecaster and that consequently, owing to accuracy little better than chance, there's nothing worthwhile in the discipline.
  • rz2k 11y ago
    Maybe I am misinterpreting your comment, but forecasting isn't the primary function of macroeconomists. Most of what will determine the future hasn't happened yet, or hasn't yet been measured. And yet, public policy, fiscal policy, and monetary policy choices all have enormous effects, and those choices are ideally informed by people who have actually studied the economy. To put it in familiar terms, there is a difference between the climate and the weather, and we are able to influence the economic environment for good or bad in the same way that we could affect the climate by changing the atmosphere or changing the distance to the sun.