21 reasons why you should never date an economist (Anniversary edition)

By: Lykke E. Andersen*

Today I have been married 20 years to an economist, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to update our favorite Development Roast post of all time (21 reasons why you should never date an economist), taking advantage of the creative feedback of our readers at the time.

Here is my updated list of the 21 best reasons never to date an economist:

1. Economists may be dangerous. Watch out for the invisible hands!
2. It won’t matter what you supply, they will always demand more.
3. They consider selfish behavior the most natural thing in the world.
4. On average they are pretty mean.
5. And definitely too trendy.
6. Love making is all about binding constraints.
7. They like their love lives like they like their markets: free and open.
8. They consider you perfectly substitutable.
9. They will always have someone on the side (as a control group).
10. They’ll only like you if you have plenty of elasticity.
11. They prefer doing it with models and dummies.
12. They first search for an interior solution.
13. They’ll only be into you if you have plenty of boom and bust.
14. Economists habitually deflate everything.
15. They require a lot of stimulus in order to expand.
16. They believe in applying the “Augmented Dickey-Fuller” method.
17. All their relationships reach diminishing returns.
18. They hold everything else constant!
19. They are never real, they always assume and assume.
20. They are happy to make you worse off, as long as they can make somebody else better off.
21. As soon as you are happy in the relationship, they’ll burst your bubble.

Congratulations to my husband for having lasted 20 years with an economist! That is definitely no small feat.

* Senior Researcher at INESAD. The viewpoints expressed in this blog are the responsibility of the author and probably do not reflect the viewpoints of Fundación INESAD.