George DeMartino: The Ethics of Economics

EconVue editor Lyric Hughes Hale is joined by George DiMartino, professor of International Economics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. They discuss his most recent book, The Tragic Science: How economists cause harm and they aspire to do good.

Economic research has life  or death policy consequences seen by economists as trade-offs—not right or wrong, in the moral sense. De Martino believes that economics is a profession in search of a standards. A surgeon can yield a scalpel, and either do harm or good. For that reason doctors are tested, licensed, and have to ascribe to a code of ethics. This is not true for economists. As he writes:

 “Economists wield extraordinary power—but unlike doctors or lawyers, they do so without a professional oath, license, or code of conduct. That must change.”

— The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics