Blue Not a Sad Color for Economists

A statistic released on Mar. 29 has shocked the international medical community: According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one in every 88 children in this country suffers from some form of autism spectrum disorder. The number indicates a 78 percent increase since 2000 and was made known 48 hours before World Autism Awareness Day, a day on which the world’s major cities symbolically illuminate their public monuments with blue light. The color blue is identified with the neurobiological disorder, which impairs communication abilities and interpersonal relations.

About 50 percent of the increase in cases can be explained, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, by improved techniques for early detection of symptoms. Still though, the phenomenon is a mystery that is being addressed from various disciplines. Among them is economics.

There are two academic stars in this field who have taken interest in the subject. One is Tyler Cowen, a blogger from Marginal Revolution, professor at George Mason and author of “The Great Stagnation,” the most widely-sold book on economics in 2011. The other is Vernon Smith, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences in 2002 and one of the founding fathers of experimental economics.

Years earlier, Kathleen Fasanella, a reader of Marginal Revolution who had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of high-functioning autism), asked Cowen if he had considered that various aspects of his personality could be due to mild autism. Cowen “scans” up to five books a day with his brain. His highly methodical habits allow him to be very prolific in academia, as well as the most popular ethnic restaurant blogger on the east coast of the U.S. When Clarin contacted him last year for an interview, he immediately mentioned a dozen Argentinian books and movies. “His university assistants go to the library with a wheelbarrow, and when you talk to him, he just keeps typing while watching his monitor,” says Argentinian economist Miguel Braun.

Cowen was fascinated by Fasanella’s question, and he later wrote “The Age of the Infovore: Could It Be that Autistics Are the Advantaged Ones in the Information Age?” In a world of infinite information, says Cowan, abilities of focus, memory and categorization can be very useful. Nobel-winner Smith is of a similar opinion. “I don’t feel any social pressure to do things the way other people are doing them, professionally. And so I have been more open to different ways of looking at a lot of the problems in economics,” he says of his Asperger’s Syndrome.

Cowen is just as careful as Smith to clarify that he is referring to “mild” cases of autism. (Cowen believes that “there is a lot more autism in higher education than most of us realize.”) They are not talking about the more serious cases. In such a context, to talk about “advantages” can be offensive to the movements fighting for greater rights and aid for those with this type of disability.