Be wary of advice and fore­casts from eco­nomic ‘experts’, says econ­o­mist Zachary Karabell—not because they are try­ing to sell their ser­vices or because they are lying, but because they truly believe their (unin­ten­tion­ally) skewed opin­ions.

Being wrong in the past is not much of a lia­bil­ity as long as one is right in the present. […]

There may be “experts” who know­ingly skew their analy­sis to serve their own bot­tom line. But I believe they are rare. The issue is less the integrity of those sell­ing their wares than the mar­ket forces that choose them. When times are good and peo­ple feel con­fi­dent, experts who sup­port that view find more traction—and more demand—than those who don’t. When times turn trou­bled, as they most cer­tainly are now, those whose per­spec­tive rhymes with the pre­vail­ing gloom appear wiser than those who do not.

Promi­nent experts, there­fore, are often sim­ply those whose voices are in har­mony with today’s mood and who have an eas­ier time sell­ing their sto­ries. That doesn’t mean that the analy­sis is inher­ently flawed—only that it is inher­ently market-driven.

Obvi­ous, but it’s good to have this reit­er­ated every now and again.