Neoclassical training immunized economists against even recognizing financial conflicts of interest

Evidence

Essentially, the indictment by Inside Job and many commentators was that the crisis had revealed that the economics profession was rife with intense conflicts of interest, and this, in turn, had so corrupted the actual orthodox doctrines of the profession that its analyses of the crisis had become untrustworthy. What was missing from these screeds was an appreciation for a major escape hatch: that immersion in neoclassical training produced adherents who lived by the motto that the very notion of conflict of interest was unprepossessing, and that corruption of market-based research was essentially impossible. Rephrasing the insight, economists were fortified to dodge the bullet because they denied the bullet had ever taken flight. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 591

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader ‘thought collective’ thesis of the book and to post-2008 critiques like Inside Job. — connects to: Economic heterodoxy declined because graduate training filtered out non-economists — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 64; Career incentives lock economists into intellectually indefensible models they know are wrong — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 792; Economists’ persistence in error needs institutional explanation, not just psychology — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 490

Broader Connections

• Economists’ persistence in error needs institutional explanation, not just psychology #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 490
• Career incentives lock economists into intellectually indefensible models they know are wrong #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 792