Qualified but non-institutionalized individuals such as Gary Stevenson, Zach Polanski, Richard Murphy, and Grace Blakeley are labeled as populists or pseudo-economists because they present information that the current system is unable to quantify.

In an interview with Zach Polansky, Rory Stewart dismissed economists such as Grace Blakeley, Richard Murphy, Gary Stevenson, and James Medway as 'pseudo-academics' because they were not 'professors' with 'academic specialty.'

Gary Stevenson believes that politicians, university economists, central bank economists, and media economists, whose job it is to fix global economic issues, are 'definitely not going to fix it.'

Rory Stewart stated that Gary Stevenson is not a professional economist but a city trader who studied an undergraduate degree in economics.

Ha-Joon Chang, Gabriel Zucman, and Thomas Piketty are prestigious economists respected by Gary Stevenson.

Gary Stevenson believes public-facing economists in government, academia, and media are often not primarily trying to be right, but rather focused on winning elections, publishing papers, or getting clicks.