Comments on: Better macro critics please

By: I May Have Been Wrong About Macroeconomics « The Emergent Fool

I May Have Been Wrong About Macroeconomics « The Emergent Fool — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:49:22 +0000

[...] observes that Arnold’s views are outdated and this is a problem with non-macro economists in general. He points to this essay and I find myself convinced that modern macroeconomics is a coherent study [...]

By: Macroeconomics as Mind Control

Macroeconomics as Mind Control — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:46:03 +0000

[...] Ambrosini is annoyed by all the macro bashing, and says that one can see that modern macro is successful, if one knows [...]

By: pushmedia1

pushmedia1 — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:46:09 +0000

I thought there were spots of insight in the Cochrane article (I never considered the possible equivalence of fiscal and monetary policy; that helicopter drops were fiscal policy), but it was pretty weak over all.

Krugman takes a bit of stupid from that paper and extrapolates to all of modern macroeconomics that stupidity.

By: Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:17:55 +0000

Just curious what you liked about the Cochrane article. My reading of it suggests that it’s pretty much total crap all the way through… Like when he says “Keynesian economics was a failure in practice” or when he blames Keynes for slow growth in Britain, or when he writes that “all we have to agree is that expectations of the future matter crucially for how people behave today, and the classic Keynesian analysis of fiscal stimulus falls apart.” Um, Keynes certainly knew about expectations — that’s not even something that the average person on the street doesn’t realize — so how does that make the case for doing more government spending during periods, like now, when there is little private investment to crowd out “fall apart”. Cochrane is utterly incoherent…

By: Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:09:25 +0000

What did you think when cochrane wrote this: “Even the optimistic projections by the Obama economic team say that fiscal stimulus will not really kick in for two years, validating the durability of this view.” –In fact, the CBO reports that about 2/3rds of the stimulus will come in the next 20 months…

By: A Note to Critics « The Everyday Economist

A Note to Critics « The Everyday Economist — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:31:57 +0000

[...] Ambrosini (who has been added to the blogroll) suggests that critics actually survey the literature before leveling their [...]

By: Everyday Economist

Everyday Economist — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:28:37 +0000

Thank you! I have been wanting to write something about this for some time, but I simply never got around to it.