Thursday 5 November 2009

More on George Soros's "Institute for New Economic Thinking"

Donald J. Boudreaux sent the following letter to the Financial Times,
Sir, You report (October 27) that George Soros is committing $50m to start a new think-tank whose purpose will be to displace what he considers (as you summarise it) “the unwavering belief in unchecked free markets, which remains pervasive in universities”. Or, to quote Mr Soros directly: “The ideologists in the free markets are still in command and I think they’ll be very difficult to remove because they have tenure.”

Mr Soros should check his facts before wasting his money. As my colleague Bryan Caplan writes in The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007), surveys show that, while economists are to the right of their university colleagues in other disciplines, “compared to the general public, the typical economist is left of centre”.
In other words Soros is trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Or may be he just want economists to be even more left-wing.

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