Are economists ethical?

I recommend Inside Job, a documentary on the global financial crisis. It places the blame firmly on the financial sector and, interestingly, also on academic economists who endorsed deregulation thereof and provided intellectual respectability. The documentary accuses these economists of having a conflict of interest because they received very generous rewards from the financial sector and promoted policies (financial deregulation) enormously beneficial to this sector.

I was astonished that these practises were considered acceptable by some very famous economists that were interviewed. Indeed they seemed surprised by the suggestion that accepting financial reward from companies that benefit from your views was questionable.

This does the economics profession no credit. They need to develop a code of practise comparable to other professions were these conflicts are avoided and where it is compulsory to openly and publicly declare such conflicts whenever their views are sought or published.

These are the standards required in other professions, such as the medical profession. It was failure to declare such a conflict that resulted in the notorious MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield being struck off. I am not aware of any sanction imposed on economists who advocate policies and benefit enormously from their implementation. Nor am I aware of leading economist acknowledging that this is a problem and advocating reform.

It's time to clean up the economics profession.