Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/24885 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Kiel Working Paper No. 1489
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
The economics profession appears to have been unaware of the long build-up to the current worldwide financial crisis and to have significantly underestimated its dimensions once it started to unfold. In our view, this lack of understanding is due to a misallocation of research efforts in economics. We trace the deeper roots of this failure to the profession's insistence on constructing models that, by design, disregard the key elements driving outcomes in real-world markets. The economics profession has failed in communicating the limitations, weaknesses, and even dangers of its preferred models to the public. This state of affairs makes clear the need for a major reorientation of focus in the research economists undertake, as well as for the establishment of an ethical code that would ask economists to understand and communicate the limitations and potential misuses of their models.
Subjects: 
Financial crisis
academic moral hazard
ethic responsibility of researchers
JEL: 
A11
B40
G01
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
400.22 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.