Economics Field May Be Experiencing New `Sobriety'

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If economists were inclined to borrow from Shakespeare, they might dub this the winter of their discontent. Wannabe movers and shakers pine for the days when Cabinet officers and captains of industry could not get through the day without advice from a dismal scientist. Undergraduates who once majored in economics as a stepping stone to riches at Goldman, Sachs are turning to math.

Even The New Yorker has piled on, concluding in an article that economists need to be cut down a peg by abolishing their Nobel Prize. Most economists wining and dining their way through the annual meeting of the American Economics Association in New Orleans next week would probably …