Experts See Room for Improvement in Economics

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For the thousands of economists attending the American Economic Association annual meetings in Atlanta, and for the millions of people in the world undergoing rapid and often chaotic change, there is a crucial question: How good is the state of economics?

The answer from some leaders of the profession: Not so good.

Herbert A. Simon of Carnegie-Mellon University, a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, contends that the differences and sharp conflicts among economists demonstrate that the state of economic knowledge is insecure.

``The public is not mistaken in its perception that economists disagree frequently and …