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Their predecessors should have done a better job managing the economy.
by cjbgkagh 1y ago
Their predecessors should have done a better job managing the economy.
- postflopclarity 1y agothe people with economics PhDs are not the people in control of economic policy.
- ceejayoz 1y agoThey're frequently the "oh ffs don't do that" folks, even.
- mothballed 1y agoIt tends to go the other way around; politicians and academia pick economists that favor the way they'd like economics to be managed. Consider that Ludwig Von Mises, one of the most famous economists never held a tenure track position. And Milton Friedman won a nobel prize, including a study of monetary history that damned the fed for helping bring on the great depression -- later nobel prize to Bernanke for works that included the great depression held quite different or even opposing views to Friedman.
- cjbgkagh 1y agoMy sampling of my interactions with young PhD economists is that they were all Neo-Keynesian, the only people I’ve met who are of the Austrian school were Engineers. I don’t doubt that the economics profession has been shaped by politics but it appears they are and have been rather willing participants.
- bee_rider 1y agoEconomics involves studying how the economy should be managed, it is an inherently political field. Declaring one school political and another non-political is itself a political sleight of hand.
- cjbgkagh 1y ago> Declaring one school political and another non-political If I were to make a distinction it would be that Austrian is a Positive Theory and Neo-Keynesian is a Normative theory, and I think it’s fair to say that normative theories are more open to political influence than positive ones.
- hapless 1y agoOne school consists of every university in the world. The other school is George Mason University, and, uh, the John Birch Society.
- mothballed 1y agoI'm pretty sure UNLV still has Hoppe and they only let go of Rothbard because he died. Which pairs pretty well with the pretty laissez-faire roots of Nevada.
- luther07 1y agoAlso Grove City College has been dedicated to the Austrian School since 1956 apparently, when they hired Hans Sennholz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Sennholz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Sennholz
- nemo44x 1y agoIt’s not surprising that aspiring economists prefer the theory which loads them with power.
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- jjk166 1y agoThat's like finding that very few PhD evolutionary biologists are young earth creationists. People who study economics wind up being neo-keynesians because that's what the data supports.
- hapless 1y agoLudwig Von Mises was never qualified for a university appointment. Even today he would never have a chance at a reputable economics department -- only GMU gives any credence to that kind of witch doctor nonsense.
- mothballed 1y agoIt's amazing Hayek won a Nobel after being the student of such a washout.
- hapless 1y agoPeople, both then and now, are fond of Hayek and Von Mises works in anti-communist polemic. At no point were they reputable economists.
- mothballed 1y agoWhat on earth are you talking about? Hayek won a Nobel prize for works in economics but isn't a reputable economist? Friedrich August von Hayek The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1974 Born: 8 May 1899, Vienna, Austria Died: 23 March 1992, Freiburg, Germany Prize motivation: “for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena” https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hayek/facts/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hay...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cyberax 1y agoVon Mises was a hack. He got accolades as a form of early affirmative action, to somehow balance all the Keynesian economists getting awards. The whole Austrian "school" of economists basically _prides_ itself on not making predictions but using their dogma to explain whatever happens later. They always have an explanation why everything is a result of rational decisions of individuals. And if anything can't be explained by that, it's just because the government interferes with the perfection of markets.
- sarchertech 1y agoThe Austrian school is economics for people who never learned calculus. That doesn’t mean they don’t have interesting things to say now and then, but it’s mostly just a collection of folk wisdom.
- reducesuffering 1y agoKeynesian Bernanke on famed Austrian Milton Friedman: "Among economic scholars, Friedman has no peer. His seminal contributions to economics are legion, including his development of the permanent-income theory of consumer spending, his paradigm-shifting research in monetary economics, and his stimulating and original essays on economic history and methodology." https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021108/ https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021...
- linguae 1y agoMilton Friedman was not part of the Austrian School. Rather, he was part of the Chicago School. While both schools promote free market economics, there are differences. In fact, one of the biggest differences has to do with their views on central banking, with the Austrian School generally being against fractional-reserve currencies while the Chicago School being more sympathetic. Milton Friedman was a monetarist.
- sarchertech 1y ago
- reducesuffering 1y agoBernanke's opposing views on the Great Depression?? "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." - Bernanke https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021108/ https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021...
- mothballed 1y agoRead "Conflicting Lessons of the Great Depression"[] chapter of Ben Bernanke versus Milton Friedman The Federal Reserve’s Emergence as the U.S. Economy’s Central Planner for a summary of differing or opposing viewpoints. From the introduction: ...As Bernanke, while still only a member of the Fed’s board of governors, said in an address at a ninetieth-birthday celebration for Friedman: “I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again” (2002b). This seeming similarity, however, disguises significant differences in Friedman’s and Bernanke’s approaches to financial crises... https://www.sjsu.edu/people/tom.means/courses/econsymposium/s1/tir_15_04_1_hummel.pdf https://www.sjsu.edu/people/tom.means/courses/econsymposium/...