Scott Sumner

Archive for Scott Sumner

O’Driscoll vs. Sumner

There is just too much good stuff to excerpt from Gerald O’Driscoll’s lead essay at Cato Unbound on central banks. OK fine, here’s just a taste: Does the literature make an intellectual case for ending the Fed? The 19th century economic journalist and Economist editor Walter Bagehot thought it would have been better if the […]

The Non-Falsifiable “Empirical” Frameworks of Paul Krugman and Scott Sumner

[UPDATE below.] The defenders of both gentlemen will no doubt frame the matters differently, but my following summaries of four total blogs posts–two from Krugman and two from Sumner–are perfectly accurate. KRUGMAN #1: In this post Krugman endorses (with a parenthetical caveat) Raj Chetty’s claim that empirical work shows that the extension of unemployment benefits […]

If You’re Not Outraged, You Haven’t Been Reading Scott Sumner’s Blog

This post title is misleading, but I couldn’t think of anything wittier. Scott Sumner calmly discusses reflections from Miles Kimball and says this: In another paper, Kimball spells out the credit policy in more detail. It might involve the government giving each American a credit card with a $2000 credit limit. This is certainly better […]

Tyler Cowen on Treasury Default

This is my favorite Tyler post of all time, with the only possible exception being his unwitting out-of-sample defense of Austrian business cycle theory. First, Tyler uses his extraordinarily powerful mind to concoct a scenario in which the economy collapses from the debt standoff: As the evening of October 16th approaches, John Boehner is preparing […]

Things Don’t Look Good for Those Fixated on Aggregate Demand

First let me relay Peter Klein’s take on the Fed’s non-taper announcement: The above is a good summary of the Rothbardian view on our current situation. Now, there have been some developments in just the last week or so that, in a just world, would cause severe angst in the psyches of those who have […]

Potpourri

I’m just outside Chicago for the Illinois Libertarian Party annual extravaganza. Some “Freedom Karaoke” tonight, followed by lectures tomorrow. In the meantime: ==> Nick Rowe writes another blog post in which he calmly and methodically destroys the foundation of mainstream central banking theory. (You may recall a few months ago Nick showed in a standard […]

Scott Sumner Is of Two Minds When It Comes to the Monetary Approach of Michael Woodford

Apparently it’s “Bash Scott” month here at Free Advice, but again, I don’t think I’m quibbling over trivialities here: Back on September 10, Scott wrote a post titled, “Listen to the expert” which quoted a news article touting Columbia University’s Michael Woodford as one the world’s most important and influential scholars publishing on monetary policy. […]

Even More Sumner Shenanigans

I almost feel bad piling on Scott, because although I disagree with his monetary views tremendously, I actually think he’s a cool guy with a good sense of humor. But this is science; we must be merciless. When the news broke yesterday that Larry Summers was pulling his name out of the running for Fed […]