Message from the Chair

Dr. Lars Osberg and students.

“The study of economics does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher — in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of a man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard.”
(Essays in Biography – epitaph for Alfred Marshall, first published 1924)

Since Keynes penned those words, the study of economics has changed almost beyond recognition. Keynes wrote at a time when female economists were relatively rare, but 43% of Dalhousie's regular faculty in Economics are now women - so one would never refer only to "he" today. Economics has also become a field of study with many specialized sub-fields - each of which is changing rapidly. Every economist will have a slightly different list of the really important innovations of recent years, but my own listing of important new insights would certainly include the recognition of asymmetric information, strategic behaviour in economic games, social norms in behaviour and (a really fun topic) the explosion of research in the last decade on “the economics of happiness.” Others might place more emphasis on new econometric tools (like quantile regressions or causality inference) or methodological innovations (like experimental economics) – but almost all economists would agree that the field is expanding and changing at a dramatic rate.

One has to say “almost all”, because economists do continually argue – understanding those arguments is a key part of a good economics education. But even if our tools of analysis have changed enormously from the days of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and Karl Marx’s Kapital to the present, the same core economic problems – the analysis of why some nations are rich while others are poor, and why within all nations some people have more while others have less – are still there. In recent years, new attention has also been paid to the economics of climate change and the environment, but in studying the efficiency, equity and sustainability of economic life, Keynes’ quote still manages to capture some of the key dilemmas, and the intellectual fascination, of the discipline.

Good economists remain “the rarest of birds.” Come join us in the Department of Economics at Dalhousie, as we try to redress this shortfall.

Lars Osberg
University Research Professor and Chair of Economics