Bruce Yandle and the Art of Economic Communication

33 Pages Posted: 10 Jan 2019 Last revised: 31 Mar 2020

See all articles by Todd J. Zywicki

Todd J. Zywicki

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School; PERC - Property and Environment Research Center

Date Written: January 9, 2019

Abstract

Bruce Yandle is one of the most influential economists of his generation, especially in the fields of environmental economics and public choice economics. But Yandle is also one of the most gifted communicators of economics and economic principles of his generation. This chapter, written for a book celebrating Yandle’s career and contributions to economic thought, is inspired by Yandle’s unparalleled gift for communication. It focuses particularly on Yandle’s use of modes of reasoning and “visions” about the world to illustrate the challenges of communicating economic concepts to citizens and government officials and how recognizing those challenges can enable economists to communicate better and, in so doing, to improve the world through the design of better regulatory policies. The chapter begins by reviewing Yandle’s use of the frameworks of Thomas Sowell’s Conflict of Visions and Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to explain public and governmental resistance to environmental economics and then supplements the analysis with more recent and related work by Jonathan Haidt and psychological personality-typing, focusing particularly on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator framework. The chapter concludes with autobiographical reflections on how Yandle’s insights about economic communication and his pedagogical style have influenced my own efforts to communicate in the public arena with respect to questions of consumer financial protection which, like environmental regulation, is fraught with strong moral intuitions and contrasting visions of the world.

Keywords: Bruce Yandle, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, environmental economics, loan sharks, Thomas Sowell, Robert Pirsig, Jonathan Haidt

JEL Classification: A10, A12, A13, A20, B31, D14, D18, Q58

Suggested Citation

Zywicki, Todd J., Bruce Yandle and the Art of Economic Communication (January 9, 2019). George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 19-01, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3312856 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3312856

Todd J. Zywicki (Contact Author)

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School ( email )

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