The low of economists

The first Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist
The second Law of Economists: They're both wrong.

Light bulb jokes

How may economists does it to screw in a light bulb?
1. None. The invisible hand does it; or
2. Just one; but it really gets screwed; or
3. One to prepare the proposal, an econometrician to run the model, two PhD students to write the theses and dissertations, two more to prepare the journal article (senior authorship not assigned), four to review it, and at least as many to refine the model and replicate the results.

Given 1000 economists, there will be 10 theoretical economists with different theories on how to change the light bulb and 990 empirical labouring to determine which theory is the "correct" one. And everyone will still be in the dark.

Who was the first economist

Christopher Columbus was the first economist. When he left to cross the Atlantic, he didn't know where he was going. When he got there he didn't know where he was. And it was all done on a government grant.

Critical realism

To an economist, real life is a special case.

Econometrician's delight

Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third econometrician didn't fire, but shouted in triumph: "We got it! We got it!"

We have two classes of forecasters: Those who don't know...and those who don't know they don't know.
-John Kenneth Galbraith

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicated yesterday didn't happen today.
-Laurence J. Peter

An economist is someone who sees something working in practice and asks whether it would work in principle.
-Stephen Goldfeld

If all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.
-George Bernhard Shaw

If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions.
-Winston Churchill