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Will Wilkinson's blog has been tracking how professional economist opinion on the bailout tends to follow their political views. On issues like free trade and p
by jacoblyles 18y ago
Will Wilkinson's blog has been tracking how professional economist opinion on the bailout tends to follow their political views. On issues like free trade and price controls there is little disagreement among economists. But in macroeconomics the professional debate isn't much better than the layman debate.
- nsrivast 18y agoSo at the very least, we should try to build consensus in the layman debate against price controls and for free trade. Angry letters to congressmen supporting "Buy American" clauses and all that, with the strength of the Ron Paul groundswell.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- likpok 18y agoThe main issue is that unlike micro or other sciences, there are no experiments. Which is somewhat frightening. There have been something like five or so actual macroeconomic experiments performed. There is no precedent for what we have done, and for what we are doing. Even the most knowledgeable macro people are still limited by the fact that their models have little evidence tying them to reality (look at the debate between neoclassicists and Keynsians today). Macroeconomics people are somewhat stuck, they don't have enough information, they don't necessarily have consistent models. As a result, it's hard to tell the difference between the nutjobs and the experts. And that gives the nutjobs a large sway where they otherwise wouldn't. Furthermore, basic economics is taught to a lot of people (I learned it in high school), which gives them the (false) idea that it is easy (which high school/intro college econ is).
- jacoblyles 18y agoMicro was pretty well established before experimental schools of thought came around.