Economists would not have got Russian sanctions wrong if they’d read Anna Karenina, academics say

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Morton Schapiro, president of Northwestern University, speaks during an interview in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, April 14, 2010.

Together, the professors want economists to realize the importance of culture in making economic predictions or decisions.

“Economists have had this idea that they have a hard science modeled on Newtonian physics and just as physicists don’t need to read novels, so we economists don’t need to read novels, they think,” Morson said.

“But, in fact, it’s not a hard science that way. It [economics] has a lot to teach us but it needs a bit more humility and to learn from what great literature has to teach you.”

Morson and Schapiro highlight real economic dilemmas that could have been resolved with better cultural understanding in their book “Cents and Sensibility.”

Sanctions against Russia in 2014, for its actions in Crimea, are an example of nonsensical economic decision-making for Morson.

Although economists didn’t predict Putin’s reciprocal reaction to the sanctions, they would have if they understood more about Russian culture, he said.

“What Putin did was, he doubled. ‘You put sanctions on us, we’re going to put even more sanctions, you are going to restrict imports, and we’ll restrict them even more.’ It doesn’t make any sense from a standard economic model.

“But Russians tend to think that the individuals exist for the glory of the state and people live and die but Russia continues. And that’s what really matters.

“If you read a lot of Russian literature, you would see that sense of national spirit, which doesn’t fit an economic model, is not how Americans or Englishmen would behave, but it does make perfect sense from a Russian perspective.”