Since the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, criticism of the economics profession has intensified. The failure of all but a few professional economists to forecast the episode - the aftereffects of which still linger - has led many to question whether the economics profession contributes anything significant to society.

We judge economics by what it can produce. As such, economics is rather more like engineering than physics: more practical than spiritual.

As far as I can find, almost no one in the profession - not even luminaries like John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, or Irving Fisher - made public statements anticipating the Great Depression.

Robert J. Shiller Quotes