Dismal Science versus Applied Economics

This chapter looks at the unhappy relationship between business education and the developing academic discipline of economics. In the minds of plenty of ordinary people, the two are basically the same thing. Notice how many Americans think the nation's economy ought to be run like an individual business and think therefore that government ought to be run by businessmen. Notice as well how many economists try to remind people that making a profit and managing an entire economy have little in common. More importantly, whatever else their curricular differences might be, virtually everyone associated with the new business schools agreed that business students ought to be taught economics. Economics, first and foremost, would put the starch of “science” into business education. That consensus, however, only raised other questions. If it was not obvious where economics belonged in the business school curriculum, where did economics belong on campus altogether? Did economists share more in common—methodologically, theoretically, even temperamentally—with historians or with accountants? These questions created considerable confusion and tension on campus. Figuring out just where economics belonged proved to have no obvious solution.