Esto es un comentario que acabo de dejar en el blog de Williamson que se me ha alargado un pelín:
I got interested in economics reading krugman’s 90’s books. Now I do this for a living, so he is sort of important for me.
Something strange about Krugman is that, if you have a close look at his substantive views about economics, they have not changed so much: he has always believed in fiscal policy, he has been sort a staunch «keynesian» (whatever that means). The main thing that has changed is his public stance.
There is a nice passage in an interview of Arjo Klamer with Bob Lucas which talking about Leonard Rapping:
«Rapping was always much more interested that I am in being where the action is. He did a lot of work for the Defense Department in those days. He had come back all excited about the billion dollar decisions he said they were making. I was interest in anti-trust issues in those days and he’d come in and say, “Look, Bob. If you finish this paper – which you probably won’t- and if anybody pays any attention to it- which they probably won’t – and if it ever gets any influence in policy – which it probably won’t – it’s going to be a matter of a hundred million dollars. And I was at the Defense Department yesterday talking about twenty billion dollars” [laughter]. So you get the feeling you’re just sort of scribbling in your office doing trivial things. «
I think Krugman saw himself in the last quarter of his career as a scholar and thought he wanted to let his impringe as a pundit and contribute in a way to his community, either for altruistic or pure ego reasons. Moreover, he understood that it was hard to find a «middle point» in political confrontation and that he could use his political leverage to influence public opinion.
Then came the financial crisis and several prestigious economists made some arguably silly claims (Prescott talked about an «Obama Shock»; Fama showed that he did not understood basic intermediate macro, etc). Additionally, several other economists -think of Taylor or Mankiw for example- were actively siding with the government. I understand that in this context, several of the critiques that he could have made about modern macro in the past were turned into a sort of bullshit that was not acceptable for serious economists but that was quite good political ammunition, specially when you get a large parte of your prestige thanks to a blog and interacting with Tyler Cowen, Brad Delong and non-academic economists. The game in the blogosphere and the political arena is just a different one from that in the academy, and I think that he perceived, rightly or wrongly, that the ambiguity and nuance that are the bread and butter of scientific discussion was bad politics, specially in the current environment.
Let me just give a final example about how the political and academic arenas differ. We have in economics several ideas and contributions that are very useful from the scientific point of view, though they must be handled with care; we have a bunch of counterintuitive results like neutrality theorems and all that stuff. In the academy, it is interesting to ask provocative questions because they might be fertile and lead to interesting ideas.
Now, the problem is that this is not any more the rule in the political arena. I read an account of how Larry Summers took his academic stance to the political world and put forward the very provocative suggestion that Africa could well be under polluted. This was a view a bit controversial, but that made sense from an economic point of view; but it was terrible politics. You really don’t want to push too far the idea that fiscal contractions are expansionary or that fiscal and monetary policy are really neutral if you want to do sound policy and sound politics, though it might well be a great starting point when you want to write a paper.
My view is that Krugman saw this and understood that several economist had mistaken the rules of the game in the academic world for those in the political arena and in many cases, this was used to put forward a political agenda. His reaction was to adopt the opposite stance, mainly as a political marketing device, maybe with the hope that other economists would follow him. At some point, he may have crossed the line and his political character tookover the economic that he is.
Creo que antes de proceder con este tema hay que dejar claro que Williamson tuvo una pelea con Krugman muy recientemente, en la que SW defendió a dos economistas muy prestigiosos (Lucas y Cochrane) porque PK se atrevió aseñalar errores muy básicos en su razonamiento (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/mistakes-and-ideology/). PK (según mi humilde opinión) tenía razón y SW, un “don nadie” comparado con Krugman, se “pico” muchísimo y empezó a criticarle de manera un poco obsesiva.
No he podido encontrar todas las URLs sobre esto. Si alguien quiere ayudar, lo agradezco.
Otro comentario más tarde.
I’m sorry but in my opinion there’s a gap in your chronology that disproves your whole thesis here.
The Krugman of 2001-2007 was already a bullying political hack instead of a solid, reasoning economist.
Blaming some silly things by Eugene Fama or Mankiw a source of his derangement won’t work. Sorry.
I do remember the exact moment (about a month after the Democrats got back a majority in both houses of Congress in the 2006 midterms) where Krugman went from a deficit Cassandra to «deficits don’t matter squat». Cowen was pretty hard on him because of that. Rightfully so. It was an amazing display of partisan hypocrisy.
We can dress it in sophistical ways and make euphemisms all day long but the change in Krugman behavior/positions boils down to a single thing: he was a honest person in the past and now he is not.
By the way, I just love how he protests against BusinessWeek for casting doubt on his affirmation that «I’ve never gone ad hominem». That quote in BW was just above another (accurate) one: «I only treat people as mendacious idiots if they are mendacious idiots» from about a month ago.
Calling someone a «mendacious idiot» is not necessarily an ad hominem fallacy… check the definition. «Ad hominem» does not equal «insult».
I’m not a «Krugman» scholar so I’m not sure what he was saying back in 2006 about deficits, but if he was against them back then and for them right now that’s actually consistent with a neo-keynesian view. It’s irresponsible to run deficits when the economy is fine, as it was back then (at least from a fiscal point of view), just as it is irresponsible *not* to run them when aggregate demand is insufficient and interest rates are near zero, as Krugman believes is the case now. And he has made this point repeatedly.
Ander, creo que has cogido la historia a mitad. Williamson lleva metiéndose con Krugman desde que lo leo (un par de años) por más o menos los mismos motivos (busca en su blog) y las críticas que hace Krugman de Lucas eran bastante poco honestas. Por otro lado, Krugman ha hecho contribuciones muy importantes a la economía, pero lleva unos pocos años sin publicar nada relevante; si miras las publicaciones de los últimos diez años en google scholar: http://scholar.google.es/scholar?hl=es&q=krugman&lr=&as_ylo=2000&as_vis=0 verás que la mayor parte de las cosas son divulgación, reviews y cosas del estilo, no investigación original, y en cualquier caso casi nada de macro. Si miras la página de Williamson (en google scholar no se ve porque williamson es un appellido bastante común) verás que, al menos en el campo de la macro, el tipo tiene bastante más peso: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~swilliam/
bidatzi:
«Krugman behavior/positions boils down to a single thing: he was a honest person in the past and now he is not»
Well, I pretty much accept your view; I’m just trying to go one step further and provide a bit of context, instead of just assume that «he suddenly turned evil»: I suggest that he came to understand that he could not afford any more to be that honest and then the slippery slope did the rest.
Nor am I suggesting that this was a sudden turn, although I admit that the story-like structure of my comment can suggest that; I suggest this was an evolution. Finally, I pretty much think that he tended to be right in his critiques of the Bush administration, though he sometimes was a bit naive.
Cives, I know that is your aim. But in the end I think there’s not that much to analyze. He realized he loved being an influential person and got to believe, correctly, that going political and demagogue was a lot more effective than remaining an academic.
About his critiques of Bush… I wasn’t arguing on the merits, simply pointing that by the time he was already a bully and a demagogue. Funny detail: at the time, he believed in those bond vigilantes that today make you a mendacious idiot and an evil person if you believe in them. he has since publically regreted the error. But honest errors are a courtesy that he is never willing to extend to people with whom he disagrees.
Regarding the different situations (crisis vs non-crisis) I want to insist that I’m talking about his very different postitions on deficits BEFORE the crisis. All that changed was the majority party in Congress. And anyway, his recipe for the economic slowdown in 2001 was not to bless any kind of deficit spending no matter what. Actually, he prescribed (you can look it up)… a housing bubble as a way out of the dot.com crash and associated slowdown.
Ikke, I know the definition. I also know a little Latin. I also did not write or quote the word «fallacy». Krugman resorts all too often to ad hominem attacks rather than engaging others on substance or, especially, the details and nuances of their positions.
Fair enough, but I think the relevant point is what Krugman meant by «ad hominem», not what you did.
Bidazti, can you please provide links for Krugman supporting deficits pre-lehman crash post-2006-nov-dem-house?
Also, believing in bond vigilantes when outside a liquidity trap and then denying their influence when you are in one is consistent with Keynesianism, as the deficit thing.
Finally, I think that given that the future of humanity (or even its survival) depends on US policy, being a bully to people who support war, torture, income and capital gains tax cuts, privatising social security, etc. is almost a duty (specially given that the NYT was quite «soft» during the early Bush years), and it’s not as if he hasn’t criticized Obama. Also, what do you exactly mean by demagogue?
Cives, thank you for the info, I didn’t know that.
P.D. I thin PK’s positions have been thorougly proven right, while monetarism and neo-classical economics have pretty much done a huge ridicule regarding government-debt-interst-rates and expansionary-austerity.
I prefer an asshole who’s right than a reasonable person who is wrong.
In January 2011, the American Economic Review celebrated their 100th anniversary with the publication of the 20 most influential articles of their first century. None of them were from the last thirty years.
This goes far beyond personal arguments between academic characters.
It is their collective recognition that the economic profession is long overdue for repairs.
Hiding their collective heads behind irrelevant models they are no longer in a position to speak-up with authority, moral or academic. They have become the «plumbers» of a rotten system and are so proud of it that the mainstream take pride in their «tool box».
Time to go back to the drawing board.
Good night.
Ander:
Pre-Lehman? 🙂 As I said I was talking about a simple month after the 2006 midterms. Lehman’s collapse was still far far away (LB filled for Chapter11 on Sept 15 2008), as was the beginning of the subprime problems (late summer 2007).
Here you go http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/12/never_mind.html
I will nor defend PK on this, 2006-07 should have been about reducing the deficit, BUT:
The embrace of pay-as-you-go orders up a $300 billion rise in taxes at the end of this decade. That’s a significant amount of deficit reduction all by itself, and a very significant change from Bush administration idiocy.
[This is part of the article]
Also, I think he makes a very good point about Bush squandering the Clinton surpluses, which still doesn’t justify the partisan position.
Hombre, pues en los últimos diez años tiene algún Economic Policy, American Economic Review y European Economic Review. Como tú, más o menos.
Hombre, pues Krugman en los últimos diez años tiene algún Economic Policy, American Economic Review y European Economic Review. Como tú, más o menos.