Unsurprising News of the Day

It turns out that academic economists are not interested in their profession adopting a code of ethics:

The world's largest association of economists is considering ethics guidelines after outrage about undisclosed conflicts of interest, but only a handful of its 18,000 members have bothered to offer any input.

The American Economic Association earlier this year charged a five-person panel with looking into ethics and economics -- in part a response to the 2010 documentary "Inside Job" that vilified a number of big-name economists for arguing in favor of deregulation while on Wall Street's payroll.

The film also notably skewered former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin, who wrote a glowing paper about Iceland's financial system in 2006 -- for which he was paid by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. Two years later, the country's financial system collapsed.

The panel, chaired by Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow, asked for input from the broader membership, with an end of June deadline, but so far, Solow said, he has received at most a dozen responses.

They then follow with a quote from some pissant by the name of David Card, an Econ prof at UC Berkeley, suggesting that it's not necessary, because they don't make that much.

But as Yves Smith wryly observes, "Last I checked, economists are much better paid than other social scientists, and lesser paid professions, like nurses and teachers, have codes of ethics."