tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post8415577023129898663..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Robert Lucas – Keynesian?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-69397420107867774302016-05-19T09:40:50.400-04:002016-05-19T09:40:50.400-04:00Brad DeLong covered Lucas on C. Romer, most recent...Brad DeLong covered Lucas on C. Romer, most recently <a href="http://www.bradford-delong.com/2009/08/why-oh-why-cant-we-have-better-nobel-laureates-in-economics-robert-lucas-suddenly-bff-with-ben-bernanke-edition.html" rel="nofollow">here</a> (2009) and <a href="http://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/12/brad-delong-shichinin-no-economusutai-not.html" rel="nofollow">here</a> (2012).<br /><br />The thing that makes me happiest about Lucas's Nobelish Prize is that he got it just in time to have to share it with his ex-wife. (Amazingly, he still pretends continuity dominates.)Ken Houghtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-67746743451961709882016-04-25T17:46:00.732-04:002016-04-25T17:46:00.732-04:00True, but the wrong turn that led us into the curr...True, but the wrong turn that led us into the current coal pit was made well before the choice to follow Keynes or "Keynes", Marx or "Marx".Thornton Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402495641975262697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-69706602364338581902016-04-25T17:42:26.145-04:002016-04-25T17:42:26.145-04:00Ordinary folks understand economics just fine. It&...Ordinary folks understand economics just fine. It's that economists don't study economics, but rather "Economics".Thornton Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402495641975262697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-61647409913765417432016-04-24T22:00:37.969-04:002016-04-24T22:00:37.969-04:00"Its annual mortgage payment will be somethin..."Its annual mortgage payment will be something like $6,000, so maybe you would expect a fall in spending by $6000;"<br /><br />This is why ordinary folks don't understand economics. Where were these people living before they bought that house? Under a highway overpass? In mom's basement? Odds are they were paying rent or another mortgage. <br />Kaleberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05283840743310507878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-41845625306269070152016-04-24T11:09:11.002-04:002016-04-24T11:09:11.002-04:00"If the government builds a bridge, and then ..."If the government builds a bridge, and then the Fed prints up some money to pay the bridge builders, that's just a monetary policy. We don't need the bridge to do that. We can print up the same amount of money and buy anything with it. So, the only part of the stimulus package that's stimulating is the monetary part. But, if we do build the bridge by taking tax money away from somebody else, and using that to pay the bridge builder -- the guys who work on the bridge -- then it's just a wash"<br /><br />Yes if you discount the future economic value of the bridge to zero. I suppose we could have had the same short term impact recreating the Colossus of Rhodes over the Golden Gate in 1937, pouring cement and steel to make an even better 400' statue with sword and shield warning the Asiatic Horde to "NOT EVEN TRY IT!" Instead they built a Bridge. Along with another one connecting SF to Oakland. Whatever you think of the car and truck culture that grew up after WWII and largely displacing rail as the primary method of transportation you can't readily dismiss the economic multipliers provided by the bridge building of the 30s and the highway building of the 50s and 60s.<br /><br />Keynesianism isn't all about digging holes, putting money in them, filing them up, and paying people to dig up the money. Sometimes it is about digging holes, putting in rebar, pouring foundations and building stuff. Like Hoover Dam. And the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge. The tendency of people to equate investments in infrastructure with Helicopter Drops from Uncle Ben Bernanke drives me crazy. Perhaps it is a hangover from Hayek whose central assumption was that planning always amounted to negative value. As if the Market would magically have delivered us Rural Electrification and Interstate Highways. Or for that matter the Transcontinental Railroad of the 1860s and the Canals of the 1820s to 1840s.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04849952583072660993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-17126257887077256102016-04-23T21:23:28.111-04:002016-04-23T21:23:28.111-04:00Two comments:
It is an old observation, but Milto...Two comments:<br /><br />It is an old observation, but Milton Friedman was much more of a Keynesian than Lucas. He never bought into the nonsense of ratex that lies at the base of all DSGE models.<br /><br />The other is that indeed Lucas went at least partly Keynesian at the worst moment of the crisis. Which says to me that just as they say "there are not atheists in foxholes" (which may not be true), there also may be no non-Keynesians in the foxholes when a full-blown global economic crisis hits (which also may not be true).rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-19221880758111482652016-04-23T15:51:34.485-04:002016-04-23T15:51:34.485-04:00It would be very interesting to hear what Lord Key...It would be very interesting to hear what Lord Keynes would say of the current macroeconomic debates - not just in the US but also in the UK and Europe. James Tobin in the 1970's used to scoff at the New Classicals claim that Keynes is dead but noting the actual man died way too young in 1946 but his influence lives on.ProGrowthLiberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17138489390594441753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-46573560170795315852016-04-23T14:10:43.521-04:002016-04-23T14:10:43.521-04:00Further on the Marx/Marxisme quote, it is Engels q...Further on the Marx/Marxisme quote, it is Engels quoting Marx:<br /><br />"Now what is known as ‘Marxism’ in France is, indeed, an altogether peculiar product — so much so that Marx once said to Lafargue: ‘Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.’"<br /><br />- Letter to Bernstein, 1882.<br /><br />In a further remark on the distinction between Marx and "Marxisme," Engels offered the criticism that the latter used "the materialist conception of history... as an excuse for not studying history."<br /><br />Similarly, the notion that Keynesianism consists of "recogniz[ing] that an insufficiency of aggregate demand can lead to... prolonged large output gaps" is used by the so-called Keynesians as an excuse for not studying history or, for that matter, Keynes's writings on economic theory. <br /><br />Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-83999193777735644912016-04-23T13:45:16.855-04:002016-04-23T13:45:16.855-04:00"What is a Keynesian? My definition is any ec..."What is a Keynesian? My definition is any economist who recognizes that an insufficiency of aggregate demand can lead to what Paul Krugman dubbed PLOGs – prolonged large output gaps."<br /><br />"ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” -- Karl Marx<br /><br /><a href="http://econospeak.blogspot.ca/2009/08/skidelsky-on-keynes-and-queens.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Skidelsky</a>:<br /><br />"My purpose in this paper has not been to enter into an argument with Keynes. It has been to show that his thought, from whatever period of his life one chooses to take it, is richer, more suggestive, and more unexpected than the textbook Keynesianism that still flourishes, or the administrative Keynesianism that ruled policy in the 1950s and 1960s. His views on the minimum sustainable rate of unemployment and his fiscal philosophy still have a great deal to offer governments. His reminder that economics needs to retain its connection with the non-economic ends of life as these have been conceived by moralists and ethical philosophers remains a necessary warning against blind worship of the golden calf, and against marketization carried to extreme lengths. So I say: Down with Keynesianism, and up with Keynes!"<br /><br />Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com