What Does It Mean for a Policy to Make Things Better?

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Co-director of a public policy institute has been thinking about what it means to make things better. He says we don't know how to answer that question in economics. The texts people still refer to date from the 19 seventies, little sene a graf am. And so there's a balance between objectivity and impartiality which should be struck.

Mainstream economics, says author Diane Coyle, keeps treating people like cogs: self-interested, rational agents. But in the digital economy, we're less sophisticated consumer and more monster under the influece of social media. Listen as the economist and former UK Treasury advisor tells EconTalk host Russ Roberts how, for economics to remain relevant, it needs both more diverse methodologies and more engagement with the broader issues of the day.