This is rare among the Macro guys today. Greg Mankiw is largely seen as the father of New Keynesianism-at least he wrote it's manifesto in 1991-and he seems to have little good to say about Keynes.
But whatever NKers say about Keynes-and it varies-they all seem to agree that Keynes' most famous and influential book, The General Theory, is a waste of time. No need to read it-unless you like literature. Who could possibly care what 'Keynes really meant?!'-this is an ironic complaint that they all seem to agree on-Athreya, Noah Smith-assuming he is a Keynesian at all and not just someone who jumps on the bandwagon of whatever is trendy-and yes even Delong and Krugman.
Simon Wren-Lewis seems to think that reading Keynes could be positively harmful for impressionable economic students-he feels the same about reading Marx or Adam Smith.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-challenge-for-economists-name.html
Farmer is something of a curious fellow-he stormed into public consciousness by declaring that Paul Krugman stole everything he knows from Farmer.
Morgan Warstler seemed to believe that this made him one Keynesian he could work with. Which right away made me suspicious of Farmer.
What Farmer has managed to do lately, is get Krugman and John Cochrane to agree-neither like what he has to say about multi equilibria.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/choose-your-heterodoxy-wonkish/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=1
Farmer has been mixing it up as Noah Smith notes:
"But here's the really cool thing about Farmer's attack on standard macro: it's coming from a real live macroeconomist. Most macro-bloggers I know of are either outsiders (Krugman, DeLong, etc.) or insiders who defend the dominant paradigm (Williamson, House, Wren-Lewis sort of), or nice folks who don't generally get in blogfights (Kimball). It's highly unusual to see a high-level, respected business cycle theorist come out swinging against the conventional macro wisdom."
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-agrarian-revolt.html
I got to give it to Smith here-that's a great title. He's also right about Kimball-who, of course,was Noah's mentor in grad school. I find Kimball's niceness positively repellent. I just read it as complacency-something that Noah also tends to. It must be nice to be so comfortable in life that it's all just an academic game for you.
But I digress.
What really stands out about Farmer is he has actually read the General Theory and, more, even likes what he read and thinks that economics still has a lot to learn from it.
http://rogerfarmer.com/NewWeb/PdfFiles/adas.pdf
To summarize, he argues that NK in throwing out much of the RBC bathwater was wrong in still accepting the baby. The big difference between GT and NKers for Farmer is the belief in mutli equilibria. The point is that for Keynes, high unemployment can itself be the new equilibrium.
"Long before it became fashionable, I made the distinction between old Keynesian and new Keynesian economics. Using my definition, old Keynesians would assert that there are many steady state unemployment rates. In contrast, new Keynesians view high unemployment as a disequilibrium caused by sticky prices. They agree with John that there is a unique natural rate of unemployment, determined by supply side factors, and that the private economy is gravitating towards that rate. They disagree on the speed of adjustment and in the role of government in achieving that adjustment."
But whatever NKers say about Keynes-and it varies-they all seem to agree that Keynes' most famous and influential book, The General Theory, is a waste of time. No need to read it-unless you like literature. Who could possibly care what 'Keynes really meant?!'-this is an ironic complaint that they all seem to agree on-Athreya, Noah Smith-assuming he is a Keynesian at all and not just someone who jumps on the bandwagon of whatever is trendy-and yes even Delong and Krugman.
Simon Wren-Lewis seems to think that reading Keynes could be positively harmful for impressionable economic students-he feels the same about reading Marx or Adam Smith.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-challenge-for-economists-name.html
Farmer is something of a curious fellow-he stormed into public consciousness by declaring that Paul Krugman stole everything he knows from Farmer.
Morgan Warstler seemed to believe that this made him one Keynesian he could work with. Which right away made me suspicious of Farmer.
What Farmer has managed to do lately, is get Krugman and John Cochrane to agree-neither like what he has to say about multi equilibria.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/choose-your-heterodoxy-wonkish/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=1
Farmer has been mixing it up as Noah Smith notes:
"But here's the really cool thing about Farmer's attack on standard macro: it's coming from a real live macroeconomist. Most macro-bloggers I know of are either outsiders (Krugman, DeLong, etc.) or insiders who defend the dominant paradigm (Williamson, House, Wren-Lewis sort of), or nice folks who don't generally get in blogfights (Kimball). It's highly unusual to see a high-level, respected business cycle theorist come out swinging against the conventional macro wisdom."
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-agrarian-revolt.html
I got to give it to Smith here-that's a great title. He's also right about Kimball-who, of course,was Noah's mentor in grad school. I find Kimball's niceness positively repellent. I just read it as complacency-something that Noah also tends to. It must be nice to be so comfortable in life that it's all just an academic game for you.
But I digress.
What really stands out about Farmer is he has actually read the General Theory and, more, even likes what he read and thinks that economics still has a lot to learn from it.
http://rogerfarmer.com/NewWeb/PdfFiles/adas.pdf
To summarize, he argues that NK in throwing out much of the RBC bathwater was wrong in still accepting the baby. The big difference between GT and NKers for Farmer is the belief in mutli equilibria. The point is that for Keynes, high unemployment can itself be the new equilibrium.
"Long before it became fashionable, I made the distinction between old Keynesian and new Keynesian economics. Using my definition, old Keynesians would assert that there are many steady state unemployment rates. In contrast, new Keynesians view high unemployment as a disequilibrium caused by sticky prices. They agree with John that there is a unique natural rate of unemployment, determined by supply side factors, and that the private economy is gravitating towards that rate. They disagree on the speed of adjustment and in the role of government in achieving that adjustment."
"It ain't so. There is no natural rate of unemployment in the sense that Friedman used that term. But by accepting some version of the Neo-classical synthesis, both John and Paul are agreeing that Say’s Law holds in the long run. Supply creates its own demand. By accepting Samuelson’s interpretation of the GT, Paul is playing in John’s backyard."
http://rogerfarmerblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/john-paul-and-says-law.html
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