The field of economics is being laughed at by the outside world. The current economic crisis caught the profession completely flatfooted. To make things worse, as the crisis was unfolding the vast majority of economists could only look at their navels and mumble that "solving real world problems doesn't help me get published in academic journals..."

The Economist magazine even got into the fray with a cover story on the failure of economics. But, alas, the profession has yet to wake-up. Instead we have Paul Krugman ranting his ramble on the pages of the New York Times. Maybe even worse we have people like John Cochrane from Chicago offer an rambling response to Krugman saying among other things "we need more math" in economics.

No, what we need in economics is a more balance, multi-disciplinary approach to the subject. Borrowing the mathematical tools of engineering was a smart thing to do, but our learning from other subjects should not stop there. We economists could also learn a great deal from psychology, sociology, history and the natural science. We need to learn from them and incorporate their findings into our understanding of how the economy actually functions. Behavioral economics is a very, very small step in the right direction.

Economists need to stop yelling at each other and start listening to other fields of study. Only then will the field actually progress.