It is good for the economists that they are desired by *somebody* for their *expertise*! The 50/50 private vs public employees is somewhat bothersome, of course. That means that fully half of them cannot get employment in the private economy! It is also good that they use more than one per department so the advice can be measured one against the other.

Rothbardian_fanatic

Or, another picture would be an economist developer applying his *tools* to the problems in the full economy and world trade.

And it's not just tools it's also a way of thinking. Best way I can describe it is to take an engineers mindset and apply it to a problem with human actors. 

SimpleStacker

econ

400 Ph.D. Economists vs. One Shiny Rock

As jaded as I am about academic economics, I can't deny that the tools are really useful. It's not an accident that most of the big tech companies have departments full of phd economists. I'd say about 50% of Econ phds I knew actually went that route 