It's Not Rocket Science, But They Sure Spend Like It

Sandy Ikeda quotes Jane Jacobs on econometricians:

We think of experiments of particle physics and space explorers as being extraordinarily expensive, and so they are. But the costs are as not thing compared with the incomprehensibly huge resources that banks, industries,governments and the international institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations have poured into tests of macro-economic theory. Never has a science, or supposed science, been so generously indulged. And never have experiments left in their wakes more wreckage, unpleasant surprises, blasted hopes and confusion, to the point that the question seriously arises whether the wreckage is reparable; if it is,certainly not with more of the same.