Reference no: EM133319269

Question: Our first lesson opened with a caricature of the economist disconnected from reality (whom I likened to a Don Quichotte who sees giants where there are windmills and when reality hits him in the face, he claims that is because a certain enchanter turned the giants into mills...). Of course, it's a caricature. And we understand well, at the end of this course, that it is also possible to make more flexible economic analyses, by taking economic theory as a first approximation. COVID-19, like all crises, has put the profession of ecologist back on the dock. More and more, the economist must prove his legitimacy. Other crises await us or persist, such as world poverty, food insecurity in the world (including in Canada!), the effects of climate change, etc. One wonders if economists, and in particular agricultural economists, are equipped enough to face these complex and devious challenges.

After listening to Esther Duflo's video (who was speaking at Laval University), explain how Madame Duflo presents the problem of the legitimacy of economists and say if and how, as an agricultural economist, you feel more equipped to completion of this course to meet these challenges.