Joining the “real world”
New York Times carried an article about how it is getting hard to attract academic economists to serve in the US Federal government. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/business/yourmoney/27view.html?pagewanted=print
Couple of quotes caught my attention.
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| Mr. Mussa explained that the problem was partly one of specializations. “In the economics profession, on the microeconomic and regulatory side, there you find a substantial number of Republicans,” he said, “but macroeconomists tend to lean a bit more to the Democratic side, on average.” |
That is interesting. Being a Mises/Hayek liberatarian, I am basically indifferent to politics (”pox on both houses” captures it well). I have always thought macroeconomics is the root of all evil. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but it is usually paved by macroeconomists.
Only a macroeconomist could claim to “model” a complex economy with a few equations and claim to deduce fundamental insights manipulating those equations. I come from a strong mathematical background, with a solid grounding in stochastic processes and other tools routinely put to use by macroeconomists; but after reading a few papers (from Nobel-laureates-in-waiting, no less), I was so disgusted at this abuse of mathematics, I eventually found http://mises.org - that was relief.
Let’s remember that statistical control of the economy was a Soviet passion - they liked playing around with those variables. Soviets were very good mathematicians, incidentally, but that only helped them drive their economy and their country into the ground. India borrowed those statistical control techniques from the Soviets too, with fairly disastrous results, the only saving grace being that the Indian macroeconomists pulling the levers were not in the same league as the Soviets.
Only a macroeconomist could make stupid statements involving printing presses and helicopter money, like Ben Bernanke made. Real world involves real people with real savings (like retired people, for example), and money is not some macroeconomic variable to be manipulated at will. And this man has been put in charge of the America’s and effectively, the world’s money.
Speaking of the real world, only a macroeconomist could make a statement like
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| But Professor Munnell praised the experience [of working in the federal government] as “extraordinary,” adding that it also had a tendency to change the outlook of academic economists: “Once you taste the real world, it’s really hard to ignore it.” |
Hello? Since when is working at a high position in the federal government supposed to be the “real world”? Don’t even retiring politicians say, at least for form’s sake, “I am going back to the real world?”