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The problem I have with the specific language economists use is there  
is very little awareness of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) shifts in  
meaning over time.  Economists speak and write as if the definition of  
"markets" is the SAME no matter who you read within the profession,  
and no matter when the person wrote.  Now, they probably KNOW  
better underneath, but that is the way they behave as professionals.   
 
It is accurate to ask, "What did Marshall mean by the word 'markets'?"   
 
It is very misleading to ask, or answer, "Economists mean such-and-so  
when they use the term 'markets'."   
 
Yet the latter is more often the language of economics.  After decades  
of using the same words in many different contexts, the result is  
dangerous.  Scholarship is an ongoing conversation -- not merely  
between researchers in the present, but also between the past and the  
present.  When there is no awareness of the strong differences in the  
explicit meanings of common words, this conversation loses strength  
and accuracy.   
 
Even more problematic, the specific meaning of economic terms is not  
stable between economic specialties (something you would only notice  
if you read literature in multiple specialties).   
 
As long as the profession insists on the phrase "Economists mean such- 
and-such when they say ..." the result is confusion not only between  
economists and outsiders, but among economists themselves -- and a  
professionally inability to directly address this confusion.   
 
In a profession that trades on information, that information must be  
trustworthy.  When language is used in such a careless manner, it  
damages the credibility of this "information market."    
 
The answer to "what do economists mean by endogeneity and  
exogeneity" is "it depends, and it has changed over time and within  
different contexts.   
 
Most economists TALK as if they don't udnerstand this (but when you  
press them they admit that of course they do) -- what concerns me  
more is the (growing) number of economists who don't seem to  
understand this at all.   
 
Mary Schweitzer 
 
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