Empirical economics, a denouement

“Our basic state of knowledge in economics is way below where you would think it was,” he says, adding that “the thing that annoys noneconomists about economists is their unbelievable certainty that they know what they are talking about, when the actual reality is they do not really know.”

That's from a nice article at the IMF on David Card, the economist behind showing via a natural experiment that raising the minimum wage doesn't necessarily increase unemployment.