Economists are agreeing with each other more

OBSERVERS HAVE long poked fun at the inability of the economics profession to make up its mind. “If parliament were to ask six economists for an opinion, seven would come back,” runs one version of an old joke. Yet the gibes may be losing their force. A new paper, by Doris Geide-Stevenson and Alvaro La Parra Perez of Weber State University, finds that economists are agreeing with each other more on a number of policy-related questions.