From Pitchfork Economics, June 7, 2022
When it comes to crafting economic policy, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, choice, and competition have reigned supreme among policymakers for decades. Sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman says that this style of economic reasoning—prioritizing efficiency above all else—makes good ideas seem like bad policy. She walks us through how that short-sighted style of thinking took hold in DC and explains when policymakers are right to lean on purely economic thinking—and when they should reject it in favor of prioritizing more fundamental values.
Elizabeth Popp Berman is a sociologist at the University of Michigan and the author of “Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy”.
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