For short-term economic policy, judgement matters more than data

By definition, short term policy is the equivalent of flying by the seat of your pants. You take your chances

How did economies grow before the economists came along and started offering advice? I have asked this question to many people who have helped run economic policy. No one has had a satisfactory answer.

So I tried refining the question: how did economies grow before the econometricians and the data boys came along? Again there was no satisfactory answer.

So I asked the logical follow-up: do these fellows make any difference to growth? This time there was only an embarrassed silence. There lies the problem. Yes, data matters, but it’s not the only thing that matters for economic policy.

So