In Defense of David R. Henderson
David R. Henderson has the enviable task of being the Wall Street Journal’s go-to guy every year when the Nobel (Memorial) Prize in economics is announced. For this year’s recipients, David said the award was given to people whose work put “a sizable chink in the Keynesians’ armor.”
Now David gives a bunch of evidence to back up his claim, mostly focusing on Thomas Sargent. I don’t think anybody has (or can) deny that all of the specific things David cites are (a) true and (b) represent a challenge to Keynesianism either today, or what it used to be. (For example, Daniel Kuehn spins it by saying that S & S did indeed challenge the paradigm reigning in the 1950s, which just so happened to be Keynesianism. But hey, if Austrians had been dominant in the 1950s, then we’d be calling this an anti-Austrian Nobel. So why does Henderson view the attack on Keynesian models, as an attack on Keynesian models? Those nutty libertarians.)
Paul Krugman, of course, continues to get saddle sores from riding his high horse. In a post entitled “Nobel Lies” he declares:
What does an economics Nobel mean? What does it do? Not what some people seem to think.
Anyone who imagines that the Nobel can tip the balance between rival schools of thought in macroeconomics or anything else is just being silly. The committee that chooses each year’s Nobel is just a committee — smart, well-informed, and scrupulous, but not gifted with godlike powers of discernment not granted to mortal men.
Ohhh, so Paul Krugman would never, say, take Peter Diamond’s winning of a Nobel as evidence that Republican opponents of his views on monetary policy were a bunch of idiots… (I know, I know, that’s not a contradiction. When Krugman says someone’s views are dumb, that is an objective repudiation based on hard facts. When David R. Henderson does it, he is a lying ideologue.)
Anyway, David does have a bit of a problem because Sims himself came out and said he rejects the idea that his work is an attack on Keynesianism. I don’t know Sims’ work much, and perhaps David was indeed stretching by including him. However, as I said, in terms of what David cited in his WSJ piece, Sims’ work certainly did challenge the reigning Keynesianism of the time.
Also, for what it’s worth, I was in a meeting with a very prominent “right wing” economist on the day of the announcement, and Sargent winning was certainly seen as “an award for our side.” I guess you can say, “Right, just shows all of you ideologues aren’t scientists,” or, an alternate explanation is to say, “When a Keynesian wins, Krugman claims victory. When a non-Keynesian wins, Krugman says the award doesn’t pick sides.”
“For example, Daniel Kuehn spins it by saying that S & S did indeed challenge the paradigm reigning in the 1950s, which just so happened to be Keynesianism. But hey, if Austrians had been dominant in the 1950s, then we’d be calling this an anti-Austrian Nobel. So why does Henderson view the attack on Keynesian models, as an attack on Keynesian models? Those nutty libertarians.”
OK, that’s just flat out intellectual dishonesty. Sorry to have to call you on that.
Since I routinely accuse you of the same Gene, that doesn’t sting too much. (Remember, I accuse you of doing something unwittingly. I’m assuming you are doing the same with me, i.e, “Bob I know you pride yourself on being honest, but wft was this??”)
I didn’t “spin” anything, to start. What I said was that they challenged a methodological approach: simultaneous equation modeling of structural relationships.
If you can explain to me how that is “Keynesianism”, be my guest.
It has nothing to do with “nutty libertarians”.
What does this even mean, Bob: “I guess you can say, “Right, just shows all of you ideologues aren’t scientists,”????
If Sargent is on “your side” of the policy debate (I would agree he is) and Sargent and Sims have the gold standard for method, how could anyone use Sargent as an example that “you” aren’t scientists?!?!? That’s a contradiction!!!
Look – if they gave the prize just to Sargent and said “this is because of all your conclusions on how bad government spending is”, I would call that an “anti-Keynesian prize”.
But since they gave it to Sargent and Sims and specifically cited their vector autoregression work and rational expectations work, I am forced to say (I’m not spinning anything – this is the obvious conclusion) – that “this is not an anti-Keynesian prize, it’s a methods prize”
DK wrote:
What does this even mean, Bob: “I guess you can say, “Right, just shows all of you ideologues aren’t scientists,”????
Sorry for the confusion. Here’s what I’m doing there:
(1) To show that Henderson isn’t inventing stuff by thinking a Nobel for Thomas Sargent is a blow against Keynesianism, I explained that another free-market guy independently thought the award went to someone “on our side.”
(2) Then I was anticipating the response, “That doesn’t justify Henderson, it just means he’s an ideologue and so is your buddy.”
I wasn’t one that thought the committee was co-opted by crazy Keynesians in 2008 either. It was clear at the time and it still is clear that that was a New Trade Theory prize.
They probably could have cited his work on Japan, which would have made it more of a “Keynesian” prize but they didn’t, because the real innovative stuff was the New Trade Theory and economic geography.
Krugman the economist went missing a long time ago.
Since then, a partisan hack doppelgänger has taken his place, throwing constant “I love left wing I hate right wing” political crap and “the government needs to print and spend MORE!” policy crap from a rickety soapbox.
Krugman always had political views. So he talks about them now more. So? He’s no different than when he had them but didn’t have a platform to talk about them.
I want a career doing economic analysis. If I was offered a national platform for talking about politics, I probably wouldn’t turn it down. That doesn’t negate or change me at all. Why not use a platform that’s offered to you?
Sure, you can try to be either an economist, or a political hack. It’s up to you.
I’m just saying that Krugman is no longer an economist, but a political hack.
Whether he adopted new political hack views since he stopped being an economist, or whether he always had those hack views but kept them in the closet while he was still an economist, is not relevant to what I’m saying.
Why do you say he’s a political hack? Because he expresses political views which (horror of horrors) are different from yours?
I guess I’m just not clear on what you’re criticizing.
If you’re just angry that he spends less time than he used to doing economics and more time than he used to talking about his political views, my response is “who cares?”.
If you think he’s somehow bastardizing his economic analysis to serve political ends, I’ve just got to disagree with you strenuously.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/the-good-paul-krugman-and-the-bad-paul-krugman/18718/
If you think he’s somehow bastardizing his economic analysis to serve political ends, I’ve just got to disagree with you strenuously.
I think Murphy, and Bill Anderson, have given more than enough evidence to show that you’re disagreeing “strenuously” with reality.
To be honest, much as I find Bob to be an extremely enlightening blogger, the Krugman Kontradiction posts are almost entirely unconvincing for me.
Don’t even compare Bob to Bill Anderson, though. In all honest I’m amazed that man even has a teaching position. I just hope whenever I read his stuff that he doesn’t teach macro. Bob takes issue with a lot of Krugman’s stuff – I think wrongly, but he’s clear on where he disagrees with him. Bill Anderson, on the other hand, attributes all sorts of outlandish things to him.
I agree that attacking Anderson is much easier than attacking his arguments, and I agree that Murphy has shown convincing Kontradictions.
Go to my blog and search on “Anderson”. I’ve addressed it a few times, but it’s not worth continuing to address. Look at LK or AP Lerner’s comments on his blog. Somehow they’ve managed to continue to tolerate it enough to comment. The man is extremely ignorant – don’t make me into a bad guy for pointing out the obvious.
He’s considerably beyond the “reasonable people can disagree” territory that Bob and many others occupy. I really don’t think you should be comparing him and Bob.
Yeah I went through your supposed expositions of Anderson’s “willful misinterpretations” and quite frankly they are very weak, and in most cases, just flat wrong.
As soon as you misrepresented Anderson’s post here:
http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/2010/09/krugmans-non-sequitur.html
in claiming that Anderson “actually thinks we live in a fixed-pie world: that for Krugman to be richer, others have to be poorer. Anderson is actually convinced that Krugman thinks this.”
Anderson ACTUALLY said:
“My question is this: How has Krugman gained from “rising disparities”? Is Krugman saying that because his income is rising, the incomes of others MUST fall?”
“If he is, then…”
That quite clearly shows that Anderson isn’t attributing to Krugman the position, he is saying IF HE IS, which does seem to follow from Krugman’s claim”
“I worry greatly about unemployment, even though my own living is secure; I warn about growing inequality, even though I’m of the class that has gained from rising disparities”
How can one believe oneself to have GAINED from rising disparity alone, if it were not the case that one believed that wealth is a fixed pie?
That’s just the first example. That terrible excuse you call an analysis only made me question the rest of it. And I was right.
The next complaint you posted was that Anderson is allegedly wrong to say that Krugman is “willfully distorting” ABCT, in Krugman’s “Hang Over” article. But Murphy and other Austrians have already shown that Krugman did indeed distort the ABCT.
AP Lerner’s comments and LK’s comments on Anderson’s blog are almost entirely composed of red herrings, distortions, and state worship pleas.
It is embarrassing to read what they say.
I think your problem is that you don’t like Anderson’s tone more than anything else.
I am not comparing Bob and Anderson. I am simply saying that both Murphy and Anderson have already shown more than enough evidence to show that Krugman is a political hack, and who is incredibly ignorant of economic principles because he’s too busy spewing politics.
Your attacks on Anderson are nothing significant. They reek of desperation.