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Friday, July 5, 2013

Shocker: Sumner Has a Comment About Krugman Listed #1 on Wall Street List

    If I could play the Scott Sumner futures market you know how rich I could be?  After reading the piece about Krugman getting picked first in the Wall Street Journal's list of most influential business thinkers I knew Sumner would have something to say. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-krugman-and-stiglitzs-peers-are.html

     "Remember “Pop Internationalism?”  In that 1998 book Paul Krugman mercilessly mocked a group of non-mainstream pundits who wrote on various trade issues without seeming to have done their homework on the basic theory.  I was reminded of that era when I saw Krugman’s newest post, where he seemed positively gleeful to lead a list of 20 “business thinkers.”  You might wonder what Krugman is doing on the top of that list, as he’s clearly not a business thinker at all, he’s an economic thinker.  And why is he happy to lead the list?"

     "Well I suppose the last question is easy to answer.  I would have been happy to lead the list, and I’m also not a business thinker.  I’d be happy to lead a list of the top ten serial killers, as long as it was in a major publication.  Who doesn’t like to lead a list?"

     "Perhaps I’m interpreting “business thinker” too narrowly, don’t most of those guys (and how can a liberal fail to note the bias in a list where 15 out of 15 are guys), do a lot of economic analysis as well?  Indeed they do, but unless I’m mistaken it’s mostly “pop economics,” of the sort that Krugman used to disdain (and perhaps still does.)  Indeed even Stiglitz, who Krugman correctly singles out for great praise, is actually something of a pop economist when he delves into macro; his monetary policy pieces are roughly comparable to the pop trade analysis that Krugman criticized in the late 1990s."

    "I figured Stiglitz would get a reaction from him. I guess that's a fair question. What was it that makes Stiglitz number 2-just his micro work? Sumner says that he is fine with 'outsider economics.' Of course, the Market Monetarists consider themselves nothing if not outsiders. Still Sumner doesn't have much use for heterodox economics-if by heterodox you mean non-Necoclassical."
  
    "If Stiglitz's recent macroeconomic analysis has made any inroads into the mainstream-and his presence on this list might suggest this-this would not be something that Sumner would welcome. Certainly not the kind of analysis he does in The Price of Inequality."

     http://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers/dp/0393345068/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373038301&sr=1-1&keywords=joe+stiglitz

     There is little question that Sumner has had considerable influence as well. The 'business thinker' label is not well defined it's true but he admits that he's been in even less well defined lists:

     "I was recently on an even more heterogeneous list, right next to Pussy Riot, so who am I to talk."

      http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=22097#comments
    

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