I got a little glib at the end of a piece on bad economics yesterday, and wanted to elaborate today, channeling the work of EPI’s crack educational team, notably Larry Mishel, Joydeep Roy, and Richard Rothstein.

In yesterday’s post, I asserted that some economists, motivated by the ideological view that market competition almost always leads to better outcomes, support school vouchers, despite lack of evidence for this view.

I should have noted that it’s a contentious area of debate, and there’s research on both sides. But I believe my original point stands: there is a strong ideology that believes injecting market competition into public schools will improve student outcomes, and I don't think the evidence supports the claim.

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A provocative oped in today’s New York Times offers one answer to the question posed above: our understanding of incentives is too simplistic.

The piece in the Times got me thinking about this question of why members of my profession are competing with weathermen for accuracy kudos. So let me count the ways: here’s a list of reasons I think economists often get it wrong.

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