Re: Joining 'em or beating 'em

[Randy Wray <lwray@xxxxxx>]

Of course, as David C. writes, there are a few "cutting edge"
economists who are called-upon for policy advice (Stiglitz certainly
qualifies; I don't know about Krugman because that isn't my field). I
rather doubt that their work is the basis of much of the policy
advice, however. I would not want to claim that ONLY second-rate
neoclassical economists find a voice in DC; my claim is that no
economist enjoys the sort of attention in policy circles that a Keynes
enjoyed. I also don't want to get into an argument about the relevance
of "newer" approaches (newkeynesianism, game theory, unit root
theorists, whatever), but in the case of GET I'm pretty sure that the
reason economics has fallen out of favor is because it can provide
very little relevant policy advice--unless one stoops to the hand
waving practiced by the apologists.

Herb G.'s response left me a bit less than satisfied; again, all of
his critiques seem to be directed at the bastardized version of
Keynes, but at the same time he says he likes this version. Keynes
certainly was not about demand management or finetuning, he did not
forget the supply side, and so on. I'll drop this now, but I hope that
Herb and others will look at the forthcoming issue of the jpke, which
will contain several articles that examine Keynesian policy (both the
bastard version and Keynes's version). Indeed, I think that Herb will
find that his own policy agenda is quite consistent with Keynes's (and
with arguments advanced in at least some of the forthcoming articles).

Randy Wray