For decades, economists, armed with elegant models, powerful data, and firm conclusions about how markets should work, have claimed to be practitioners of a hard science. Yet in an era of financialization, political backlash, and rising skepticism of any “expert” consensus, many Americans are wondering whether the profession has grown too insular, too ideological, or simply too detached from reality.

Luigi Zingales, professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and director of the Stigler Center, joins Oren Cass to discuss what’s gone wrong. They explore the hierarchy of and conformity within the field, the temptation to defend models because of the conclusions they produce, and the gap between theoretical assumptions and real-world outcomes. The conversation closes with a look at whether a younger generation of economists is prepared to rethink the orthodoxy, and what it would take for economics to regain both its rigor and its relevance.