Questions to Ask an Economist
For when you have an economist's attention for a while: at the microphone after a guest lecture, in an interview for a class project or a student paper, or in office hours, if you are a student looking for questions to ask an economics professor. The 57 questions run in the order the conversation tends to go: their own work, what the evidence supports and where it is contested, the headline figures and the forecasts made from them, economics in public debate, and then studying the subject and the careers it leads to.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Their work
What do you actually work on day to day?
Why ask it
Economics is a wide profession, and for many in it the week is data cleaning, code, teaching and refereeing, with very little pronouncing on the economy. The answer tells you which of your other questions this person can speak to with authority.
Which area of economics is yours, and what falls outside it?
Why ask it
Subfields use different methods and carry different levels of confidence. A labour economist working from payroll records and a macroeconomist working from models are doing dissimilar jobs, and knowing where their patch ends stops you putting a question to the wrong specialist.
What is a result in your field that most people would find surprising?
Why ask it
This draws out something concrete from inside their expertise, where a broad question gets a general principle. Good answers name a specific finding and its evidence, and the surprise usually comes from a mechanism people had not considered rather than a contrarian headline.
Who do you disagree with in your own field, and what is the argument about?
Why ask it
A named disagreement gets a more precise answer than asking whether economists disagree. Listen for whether the dispute is over a method, a dataset or the size of an effect, and for whether they can describe the other side fairly.
What question are you stuck on right now?
Why ask it
Researchers are rarely asked about the unfinished part, and it is usually what they most want to talk about. You get to hear how a problem looks before it has been tidied into a paper.
How did you end up studying this subject and not another one?
Why ask it
The route is seldom a plan: a dataset that became available, a supervisor's suggestion, a spell in a ministry that raised a puzzle. Hearing it shows how research topics get chosen in practice, which is worth knowing when you wonder why some subjects have a thick literature and others almost none.
How much of your work is theory, and how much is working with data?
Why ask it
The split differs a great deal from one economist to the next. Someone who spends the week proving things about a model and someone who spends it cleaning administrative records will come at the same policy question differently, and it helps to know which of them you have in front of you.
Who uses your work once it is finished?
Why ask it
It might be a ministry, a central bank, a court hearing a competition case, a firm setting prices, or mainly other researchers. The audience tells you what kind of claim the work has to support and how quickly it has to be delivered.
What would you study if funding and data were no obstacle?
Why ask it
Here you find out which question they think matters most, as opposed to the one that happened to be feasible. Ask what is missing, too. Often it is a set of records that some agency or company holds and will not release.
Evidence
What does the evidence show clearly, and where is it genuinely contested?
Why ask it
Separating the settled from the disputed is the single most useful thing an economist can do for a non-specialist. Anyone who cannot draw that line, or who presents their whole field as resolved, has told you something about themselves.
What do economists broadly agree on that the public does not?
Why ask it
There are questions where surveys of the profession show strong agreement and public opinion does not follow, and the gaps are informative. Follow up on why the gap persists, and whether part of the reason is how economists explain themselves.
In your own work, how do you separate cause from correlation?
Why ask it
Identification is the central technical concern in applied economics, and the answer will name the tools: natural experiments, instruments, difference in differences, regression discontinuity. If it cannot be explained plainly, that is worth noting.
How much do you trust the data you use?
Why ask it
Measurement is the quiet problem in a great deal of applied work: revisions, sampling gaps, definitions that changed mid-series, activity that goes uncounted. Economists hold detailed views on this and are almost never asked for them.
How big is the effect, and how sure are you of that size?
Why ask it
Direction is the easy half of most findings. Ask for a range and for what it means in ordinary units, such as jobs, prices or weeks of income, and notice how wide the range is before you repeat the result to anyone.
When you say a policy works, what are you measuring, and who is outside that measure?
Why ask it
The yardstick behind the word "works" is rarely stated, and this brings it into the open. Aggregate gains routinely coexist with concentrated losses, and the second half is how you find out whether the claim covers the people you were actually asking about.
How far would you expect that finding to hold in another country or another decade?
Why ask it
A result measured in one labour market or one period carries its setting with it. A careful economist will say which features of that setting the finding leans on, whether a particular benefit system, a strong union or an unusually tight job market, and so how far it can be moved.
What would a sceptical colleague say is the weak point of that study?
Why ask it
Every paper has been through seminar audiences and referees hunting for the weak point, so the author already knows where it is. Borrowing the colleague's voice lets them say it without sounding as though they are disowning their own work.
Which assumptions in your field do you find hardest to defend?
Why ask it
Every model rests on assumptions its own users find uncomfortable, about rationality, expectations, market clearing, or how firms actually set prices. This gets you an honest tour of the limits from someone inside them.
Which piece of your own work has held up, and which has not?
Why ask it
Few researchers volunteer that a paper failed to replicate or was overturned by later data. Putting both halves in one question makes the admission easier, and how they talk about the paper that did not survive says a good deal about how they treat evidence.
What would change your mind about the thing you are most confident about?
Why ask it
You are asking for the condition under which they would be wrong. A specific answer, such as a particular result, a data revision or a natural experiment coming out the other way, marks a working researcher. If nothing could, what you are hearing is a conviction.
What does the profession still not have a good answer to?
Why ask it
An open problem is easier for them to talk about than a defence of the field, and the answers tend to be substantial: why measured productivity growth slowed, how expectations form, what makes inflation persistent, why some countries converge and others do not.
Figures and forecasts
Which indicators do you look at first when a new set of figures comes out?
Why ask it
You learn what a professional reads past and what makes them stop. Follow up by asking how much weight they put on a first release, since many headline figures are revised in later months.
How should someone like me read a headline number, such as the monthly jobs figure or the inflation rate?
Why ask it
Pick one figure you see regularly and ask about that one only. A useful reply covers what the number counts, how large the usual margin of error or revision is, and how many months of movement it takes before a change means anything.
If inflation is coming down, why are prices still going up?
Why ask it
The inflation rate measures how fast prices are rising, so a lower rate means slower increases and not cheaper shopping. It is a very common confusion, and an economist can show you on the published series what falling prices would look like and how seldom that happens.
How accurate have forecasts in your area actually been?
Why ask it
Forecast records can be checked against what happened, and an economist who has looked will tell you how wide the misses were. A candid answer separates short-horizon forecasts, conditional projections and long-run predictions, which are three different activities usually reported as one.
What is the difference between a forecast and a projection, in the way you use the words?
Why ask it
Roughly, a forecast says what is expected to happen, and a projection says what would follow if stated conditions held. The second is often quoted as though it were the first. Hearing the distinction from someone who produces both saves a good deal of misreading.
How do you describe uncertainty to a minister, a client or a journalist who wants one number?
Why ask it
The pressure to hand over a single figure is constant, and each economist has a way of dealing with it: a range, a set of scenarios, a central case with warnings attached. Knowing their method tells you how to read their quoted remarks afterwards.
What did the last big surprise in the economy teach people in your area?
Why ask it
Leave the choice of episode to them, whether a financial crisis, a pandemic or a burst of inflation. The part to listen for comes second: which model or habit was changed afterwards, and which was kept in spite of the miss.
What is a question about the economy you would refuse to answer, and why?
Why ask it
Economists are asked constantly for market calls, rate predictions and stock tips. Where they place their own limit shows how seriously they take the difference between their expertise and their opinion.
Public debate
Which economic idea gets misused most often in public argument?
Why ask it
Economists watch their concepts get flattened in debate and generally keep a list: comparative advantage, efficiency, moral hazard, opportunity cost. The answer improves how you read the news that same week.
What is the strongest argument against the position you have just set out?
Why ask it
Someone who can build the opposing case in detail has tested their own against it. Someone who can only describe the other side as ignorance or bad faith has stopped engaging with the argument, and that is worth knowing before you quote them.
Where does the economics stop and your own judgement about values begin?
Why ask it
An economist can estimate what a measure costs and who bears it. Whether the trade is worth making is a matter of values, which they hold as a citizen like anyone else. Most will draw the line willingly when asked, and the conversation is more honest on both sides once it is drawn.
How much do your own politics shape which questions you find interesting?
Why ask it
Values enter at question selection, long before any result. A researcher who can describe how their priors influence what they choose to study is being more useful than one who claims perfect neutrality.
Who funds your research, and does it shape what you study?
Why ask it
Money tends to act on a research agenda through what becomes feasible to study more than through conclusions ordered in advance. Grants, consulting, industry contracts and access to data are all fair to raise, and most researchers treat it as an ordinary question.
Have you ever advised a government or a company, and what happened to the advice?
Why ask it
Advice that meets a deadline, a budget and a minister's priorities seldom survives whole. The story of what was kept and what was dropped teaches more about how policy gets made than any account of what the policy should have been.
Which policy would most economists support that has little chance of being adopted?
Why ask it
The distance between what the profession would recommend and what can pass is a subject in itself. Ask why the idea stays stuck. A common reply is that the people who would lose are few and well organised, while the gain is spread thinly across everyone else.
Which country's experience changed how you think?
Why ask it
A country case is often what moves an economist off a position, and the examples are concrete: a reform that worked when nobody expected it to, a crisis the standard model had no room for. You get a far better answer than by asking about international comparisons in general.
What is the most important thing happening in the economy that is getting little attention?
Why ask it
Coverage tends to follow the monthly releases, and slower shifts in population, productivity or public debt get less of it. Their pick shows what they watch that reporters do not, and a good follow-up is which published figure would let you keep track of it yourself.
What do you expect AI to do to jobs and wages?
Why ask it
Views inside the profession differ widely here, so treat the reply as one informed position and not a forecast. It becomes more useful if you narrow it: which tasks they expect to change first, and what earlier waves of automation can and cannot tell us about this one.
What do you wish people asked you instead of where interest rates are going?
Why ask it
Most economists carry a short list of questions they would rather be asked, and handing them the choice often produces the best ten minutes of the conversation. It suits a guest speaker in class or the last question to a panel.
What should I read to be able to argue with you competently?
Why ask it
Asking to be equipped as an opponent, rather than as a convert, gets you the strongest material from both sides. It also signals that you intend to check the claims rather than collect them.
Studying economics
What do students in your course most often misunderstand?
Why ask it
A professor sees the same confusion arrive every year, often around opportunity cost, thinking at the margin or what a model is for. Hearing it named in office hours shows you where to spend revision time and what the exam is likely to probe.
What does a strong exam answer or essay look like in your course?
Why ask it
Marking differs by course and institution, so the person who sets the paper is the one to ask. Many will say what lifts an answer above adequate, such as a diagram that is explained and not just drawn, or an argument that names its assumptions, and some will show you a past example.
How is economic research different from the economics taught in an introductory course?
Why ask it
Introductory courses teach a small set of models with clean answers. Much research is about measuring whether, and how far, those models hold in a given market. A student who knows this early reads the textbook with better questions.
How much maths and statistics do I need, and which courses should I take first?
Why ask it
The honest answer depends on where you are heading. A first job as an analyst and a place on a doctoral programme ask for very different amounts, and an economics professor can say which courses in your own department close the gap.
What software or programming language should I learn for this field?
Why ask it
Stata, R and Python are all in common use, and departments and employers lean different ways. Ask what they and their coauthors work in, and what they would learn first if they were starting today.
Is there research in the department that an undergraduate could help with?
Why ask it
Research assistant work in economics is mostly data work: cleaning files, checking code, building tables. Ask what they would want you to be able to do on the first day, and whether such posts are paid or count for credit at your institution.
Which topic would make a manageable thesis or term paper?
Why ask it
A professor can tell within a minute whether a question is answerable with data a student can actually get hold of. Bring two or three ideas, because the first is nearly always too large.
What would you need to see from me before writing a reference?
Why ask it
Raise this long before you need the letter. Most professors want to have seen your work at close range, in a seminar paper, a thesis or a research job, and knowing that early gives you time to create the chance.
What does a PhD in economics involve, and who should not do one?
Why ask it
Programmes differ by country in length, funding and how much coursework comes first, so ask how it works where you would apply. The second half of the question is where the useful warnings come out: about the mathematics, the years involved and the academic job market.
Careers
What do economics graduates from here go on to do?
Why ask it
Ask for the real spread among recent students: consulting, banking, the civil service, data jobs, further study. Someone who has taught in the department for some years knows where people landed, which is better information than a prospectus.
Is an economics degree worth doing if I do not want to be an economist?
Why ask it
Plenty of people who study the subject never have economist in a job title, so this is a normal thing to ask. The part to press on is what the degree trains that a business, statistics or politics course would not, and whether a joint degree is possible at your institution.
What do economists do outside universities, and how is that work different?
Why ask it
Central banks, finance ministries, competition authorities, international bodies, consultancies and technology firms all employ economists. The work there is usually faster and tied to a decision somebody has to make, and an academic who has moved between the two worlds can describe what is gained and given up.
Which skills from an economics degree do employers actually use?
Why ask it
Expect a shorter list than the syllabus: handling data, writing one clear page, and thinking in trade-offs and incentives. Then ask which of these their former students report having been short of in a first job.
Would you recommend a master's degree before applying for economist jobs?
Why ask it
This turns heavily on the country and the employer. Some government and central bank posts expect a postgraduate degree and others hire from a first degree, so ask how it works in the place you want to apply.
What would you do differently if you were starting your training now?
Why ask it
What comes back is advice with the hindsight left in: a field they would have entered sooner, a skill they picked up late, a year they would not repeat. Ask what has changed in the profession since they trained, so you can tell which parts still apply to you.
Who else should I talk to about this?
Why ask it
A good closing question for a student. One introduction, to a former student now in the job you are curious about or to a colleague in another subfield, can be worth more than the rest of the meeting.
Getting a useful answer
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Which questions for which conversation
An economics professor in office hours
Start under Studying economics with the one about what students in the course misunderstand, then take one from Their work so the visit is not only about your grade. Three or four questions fill a normal slot. Keep the reference and PhD questions for a second visit, once they have seen some of your work.
A guest speaker or a panel
With one turn at the microphone, choose a question the whole room can use and that the talk did not already answer. Evidence and Figures and forecasts are the groups to draw on: how big the effect is, what a sceptical colleague would say, how accurate the forecasts have been. Keep it to one sentence and do not attach a speech to it.
An interview for a class project or a student paper
Open with the first two questions under Their work so you know what this economist can speak to, then build the middle from Evidence and Public debate, where the quotable answers are. Ask before you record, and send the passage you plan to quote if they would like to check the figures.
A careers conversation
Say in two sentences where you are: your year, the courses you have taken, the kind of job you are weighing. Then go straight to the Careers group and finish by asking who else you should talk to. Requirements for economist posts differ between countries and employers, so treat what you hear as one person's experience and check it against a second.
How to frame the question
Ask about mechanisms, not verdicts
Whether a policy is good is a political question with an economic component inside it. Asking how it works, who pays, who gains and over what timescale gets you the part they are qualified to answer.
Ask for the size, not just the direction
Almost any effect exists to some degree, so the magnitude is the whole argument. Push for numbers, ranges, and how much of the variation the finding actually explains before treating it as settled.
Separate the measurement from the value judgement
That a tax reduces employment by a certain amount is a measurement. That this makes it a bad tax involves a view about who matters and how much. Asking which one you are being given keeps the conversation honest.
Ask what would settle the disagreement
If a dispute is empirical, someone can name the evidence that would resolve it. If nobody can, the disagreement is probably about values, and it is more productive to discuss it as one.
Who you are actually talking to
An academic economist
Their authority is narrow and deep. Ask about their own literature and you will get precision. Ask for next year's growth rate and, unless forecasting is their field, you are getting an educated guess from outside it.
A bank or market economist
Producing near-term views for clients is part of the job, so forecast questions get answered readily. Ask what their institution's house view is and how their own position relates to it.
A government or central bank economist
There will be subjects they cannot discuss, particularly live policy. Ask about method and history rather than intention, and do not read careful phrasing as evasion.
A development or field economist
Ask about the setting: who collected the data, what the local institutions were, and how much of the result they would expect to travel to anywhere else. External validity is the live question in that work.
What not to ask
- Do not ask for investment advice. Most economists are not investment professionals, and the ones who are will not give it away in conversation.
- Avoid asking whether the economy is good or bad. Ask about one measure, for one group, over one period.
- Do not treat one economist as the profession. Disagreement is normal, and quoting an individual as though they speak for economics misrepresents both.
- Skip the argument you already had online. Arriving with a grievance rather than a question makes the conversation about you.
- Use recession, inflation and unemployment carefully, since each has a technical definition and loose usage sends the answer into a definitional correction.
- Do not ask them to predict the next crisis. Crises are identified once they are under way, and pressing only produces a number nobody believes.