Does anyone else feel like economics is dead?

Warning: this is a rant. It is not my intention to offend, but to explain some negative thoughts I’ve been having. Feel free to disagree and point out my biases.<br><br>I’ve been following economics closely for about 10 years now. When I first entered the field, I was excited to learn about the science of how people allocate scarce resources in the most efficient way possible. I learned about how supply and demand determines prices, and how prices help efficiently allocate goods. I went on to learn about more advanced topics like game theory and behavioral economics. I loved it. <br><br>But the more I learned, the more I began to realize that economics as a science is stagnant. I no longer have faith in the field’s ability to do good science. In my opinion, economics in 2023 is no more advanced than economics in 1973.<br><br>Don’t get me wrong - there is good content on this sub. But I feel like 90% of the content is from a handful of economists using the same methods that have been used for the past 50 years. For every post about empirical research, there are nine posts commenting on the day’s news. For every post showing a clever new model, there are nine posts using the same methods that have been used for decades. In the words of Thomas Kuhn, this isn’t science. And for every post showing some new method, there are 10 posts tearing it down without offering a constructive alternative. <br><br>Empirical Chetty and co are incredibly gifted researchers who have spent their careers developing new techniques and measuring things we previously hadn’t been able to measure. These are clever people who have done very good work. But even their papers from the 2010s are using techniques being used in the 70s and 80s. <br><br>I can’t think of any modern economists that have made huge impacts in the field. I genuinely can’t think of a single economist that has improved the field in a way similar to how Feynman improved physics, or Watson and Crick improved biochemistry, or Einstein improved mathematics. There are plenty of clever people doing good work, but they aren’t paradigm shifting. <br><br>I’ve seen some attempts to incorporate machine learning, but it’s absolutely fringe and is seen as taboo in mainstream academia. Mainstream academia still fully stands behind OLS and 2SLS and IVs and other methods that have their place but aren’t the future of economics. <br><br>I still use economic models to analyze the world around me, and I think they’re incredibly useful tools for describing human behavior. But I don’t think the field is moving in a positive direction. I am hopeful that things will improve in the next 5-10 years.