As Nobel Prize winner an New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has noted, the field of economics is a lot like the field of medicine: They are fields where knowledge is limited (both are new as real...

As Nobel Prize winner an New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has noted, the field of economics is a lot like the field of medicine: They are fields where knowledge is limited (both are new as real scientific disciplines), an where many cures are quite p ainful (“opportunity cost”), but where regular people care deeply about the issues. What are some other ways that economics an medicine are alike? Economics is sometimes called “the dismal s cience.” Of the big ideas in this chapter, which sound “dismal”—like bad news?