Who is a better manager between an economist and an accountant?

[Etini]

When I listen to people say that hiring an accountant would help your business grow in leaps and bounds, I often get confused. This is so because I have taken a professional course in Accounting and I have also taken a professional course in Economics. From my experience in the two courses, I feel an Economics deals more with decision-making and alternatives than accounting. Accounting is majorly concerned with financial decisions and economics is concerned with making decisions while exploring alternatives. Economics is more encompassing.

So, when it comes to the debate on which profession between the two would make a better manager, I always stand with an economist. An economist has been trained to be a manager of all kinds of resources. An accountant barely knows anything about the dynamics and workings of a labor force for instance. Personally, I feel economists are better managers overall than accountants. Accountants are excellent financial managers though.

 

[Holicent]

You can answer this question by comparing their strengths and weaknesses. The strength of an accountant is that he/she can give you a clear picture of how your business will perform in the future. For example, if you run a small retail shop, then you need to know how many customers are coming to your store and how much they are spending on average. So, the accountant can provide you with this information by using statistical models such as regression analysis or forecasting models such as ARIMA (AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Averages). This way, you will be able to plan for your future sales and make decisions accordingly.

On the other hand, economists have excellent analytical skills and can use them for making good business decisions. For example, economists have studied extensively about the relationship between price level and inflation rate in economies; therefore, they can help businesses make better pricing strategies so that they don't end up losing money on account of price competition from competitors.

In short:

Economists are more suitable for strategic decision-making whereas accountants are better suited for tactical decision-making.