The Politics of Economics - 23 October 2018 - The Power of Economists within the State

Johan Christensen (Leiden) Respondent: Ellen Quigley (Cambridge) Abstract The spread of market-oriented reforms has been one of the major political and economic trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Governments have, to varying degrees, adopted policies that have led to deregulation: the liberalization of trade; the privatization of state entities; and efficiency-oriented tax reforms. Yet some countries embraced these policies more than others. The talk examines one major contributor to this disparity: the entrenchment of U.S.-trained, neoclassical economists in national bureaucracies. It highlights the relationship between expert professions and state institutions – and its decisive influence on the formation of public policies.