Uncertainty and the Keynesians

by Chidem Kurdas

At the current economic juncture two camps offer diametrically opposed macro policy prescriptions. Economists on the Keynesian side such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman advocate further monetary easing by the Federal Reserve and massive new federal deficit spending. The opposing camp includes Austrians and monetarists. Among its distinguished members is Allan Meltzer, who in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed column argues against monetary stimulus and favors reduced government spending.

These correspond to two ways of understanding the sluggishness of the US economy,  explanations based on different time horizons

Krugman Redistribution or Ponzi Scheme

by Chidem Kurdas

A nice thing about Paul Krugman, he does not mince his words. Thus his new book, End This Depression Now!, repeats as boldly as possible the central point he’s repeatedly made in his New York Times columns and blogs for years. Namely, governments have to spend a lot more. They have to run gigantic deficits, much more than they’re doing now. His penchant for going straight for the jugular means that the full implications of the scheme he advocates are crystal clear.

Krugman on Banks and Romney

by Chidem Kurdas

Regulation advocates seem to regard the JP Morgan loss as the best thing since sliced bread. Thus Paul Krugman gleefully bawls out Mitt Romney for refusing to see it as a sign for greater government intervention.

Krugman repeats the by now well-known argument on banks, as a riff on “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The Jimmy Stewart character makes “a risky bet on some complex financial instrument,” loses the money and causes his bank to collapse. The moral: banks should not be allowed to take on much risk because “they put the whole economy in jeopardy” and “shouldn’t be allowed to run wild, since they are in effect gambling with taxpayers’ money.”

The fact is, banks make money by taking risk. That’s always been the business model. Even Bailey Building and Loan in “It’s a Wonderful Life” makes risky home loans—one might think of them as subprime.

Elitist Hokum from Krugman

by Chidem Kurdas

It has become a standard left-liberal jibe that those complaining of government largesse receive a piece thereof themselves. Such beneficiaries go against their own interest if they favor smaller government—so it is alleged. Thus Paul Krugman in the NYT  largely agrees with Thomas Frank, who attributed apparent red state ingratitude to the exploitation of social issues by Republicans in his book What’s the Matter with Kansas? 

In addition Mr. Krugman cites evidence suggesting large percentages of Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries  are confused about their use of these government programs.  They don’t seem to think they’re getting handouts.

Maybe that’s because they’re in fact not getting handouts. 

Yes, Paul: It is Hayek versus Keynes

by Mario Rizzo

Although by the standards of contemporary economics, I am a historian of economic thought, I am not a historian of economic thought, properly considered. Thus my major interest in F.A. Hayek’s business cycle theory is not from the point of view of a historian. My interest is only incidentally in how Hayek’s contributions were perceived in the 1930s and 1940s, especially in light of John Maynard Keynes’s Treatise on Money and General Theory.

I am interested in Hayek’s business cycle theory because I believe it has much to teach us today – both in the style of reasoning it embodies and for its substantive points. Of course this is not to say that Hayek’s approach cannot be improved upon and revised in light of more recent theoretical and empirical developments.

But now comes Paul Krugman with his sometimes-echo Brad Delong (or is it vice versa?). Krugman thinks that Hayek was not an important “macro” economist; certainly not the rival or alternative to Keynes, either in the 1930s or today. 

Politics of Healthcare Rationing

by Chidem Kurdas

The Obama administration’s remake of the US healthcare system stands on three legs. It makes the purchase of insurance compulsory. It doles out new entitlements via expanded Medicaid, subsidies and certain benefit mandates. And it promises to control the growth of medical costs. The title of the 2010 law, the Affordable Care Act, highlights the cost containment feature and Paul Krugman, for instance, has repeatedly cited a Congressional Budget Office prediction that the changes would reduce the federal budget deficit by keeping down costs.

Now we have more information as to how this supposed cost containment works.

Japan Reveals Regulatory Trap

by Chidem Kurdas

Once upon a time, people tried to explain the post-war “Japanese Miracle” of rapid growth. Then in the current century, the puzzle shifted to Japanese stagnation since 1990. The lesson from these two distinct phases of Japanese history is germane for current American policy.

Chalmers Johnson’s influential book, MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1982), examined how the powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry had guided and regulated the economy.  MITI implemented industrial policy in what Mr. Johnson called a defining characteristic ofJapan, namely close collaboration between politicians, economic bureaucrats and big business.

MITI’s successor, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, promoted the use of nuclear power. The ongoing problems at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant threw new light on METI. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., is a monopoly fostered by regulators. The government announced that the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency will now be separated from the Ministry, to give it greater independence. 

Are Swiss Banks Socially Useless?

by Chidem Kurdas

That’s a daft question, but it is suggested by what became conventional political wisdom in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Finance was vilified and  financial activity widely described as socially useless, a term coined by British regulator Adair Turner. Yet the developed economy that has boomed in post-crisis years is Switzerland, a world financial hub.

Taylor, Krugman and Quantitative Easing

by Chidem Kurdas

In two substantial New York Review of Books articles, Paul Krugman and Robin Wells offer their views on various explanations of the property bubble and ways to get out of the slump.  On the latter front, they advocate aggressive deficit spending by the federal government and  quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve— No surprise to anyone who reads Professor Krugman’s writings.

Regarding the causes of the bubble, they favor the “global savings glut” explanation.  This view absolves the Federal Reserve from having spiked the punch bowl at the intertwined credit and real estate parties—by keeping interest rates exceptionally low from 2002 to 2005. It is remarkable that Krugman and Wells dismiss the case against the Fed without even bothering to mention the work that argues and presents evidence for the Fed’s pivotal role in causing the crisis—namely, Stanford professor John Taylor’s book and articles, including a Wall Street Journal piece.  

Why does this matter?

Two Visions Fuel Political Attacks

by Chidem Kurdas

Apparently left-liberal pundits are convinced that people oppose government expansion either out of stupidity or cupidity—not, say, out of a sincere belief in freedom. The oft-repeated story is that ignorant and misguided masses are being led by greedy business interests. Paul Krugman’s recent column is one of  many examples in the genre where billionaires intent on ravaging the country provide the bucks while clueless Tea Partiers provide grass roots brawn.

The best insight regarding this type of criticism comes from Thomas Sowell, whose analysis of two distinct visions of human nature puts current attacks into long-term perspective. Jerry O’Driscoll referred to this work in his comment on anti-intellectualism, a charge often levied by the same left-liberal critics.

In A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (published 1987, new edition 2007), Professor Sowell contrasted two fundamental views that go back several centuries.

Still Hearing Defunct Economists in the Air: Krugman’s Misplaced Attack on Hayek

by Richard Ebeling*  On July 9th, Nobel economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, gave his read on the recently unearthed letters between J. M. Keynes and F. A. Hayek in the London Times in October 1932, which have been posted and discussed on ThinkMarkets. (and in the Wall Street Journal). Krugman insists that Hayek is worse than he thought and that Keynes was better than he imagined. He attacks Hayek for insisting that the best cure for recovering from the Great Depression would be to free up markets both domestically and internationally, and to rein in government spending. This, Hayek said, would create the political and fiscal environment that would foster a positive private sector return to a job generating rebalancing of supply and demand, and a sustainable investment climate. Not surprisingly, Krugman instead, hails Keynes as the advocate of fiscal stimulus that would “prime the pump” through deficit spending and government sponsored job creation. He thinks it is all a great tragedy that the same battle has to be fought all over again for sound Keynesian policies, nearly eighty years after the exchange of these letters. But what, instead, is Krugman missing?

Paul Krugman, Ipse Dixit 2

by Mario Rizzo  

Some time ago I wrote a post with this name.  

Now Paul Krugman is at it again with his ex-cathedra pronouncements. He says that because of the recent planned move by European countries in the direction of austerity and the talk in the US about austerity, we are on the verge on a “third” great depression in American history. 

It is hard to know how to respond. Krugman has no evidence.

“In the Long Run We Are All Dead” What Does It Mean?

by Mario Rizzo 

Paul Krugman continues to invoke Keynes’s famous statement. I wish Krugman and others would give some serious thought about what it is supposed to mean and the errors it involves.   

In the first place, Keynes was complaining about the “classical” economics, that is, the ideas of the economists before him who believed that the market, if unhampered after a recession, could reduce or eliminate the unemployment associated with the business cycle.  

Of course, this puts many economists – with different ideas – in the same category and treats the issue of cyclical unemployment in a grossly simplified way. But this, in general, is how Keynes treated those who disagreed with him. Keynes, the polemicist, was without inhibition. 

Some basic methodology is in order. When economists talk about “the long run” they do not mean calendar time. Yes, that’s right.

Quick, More Stimulus!

by Mario Rizzo  

More than thirty-five years have passed since Friedrich Hayek said in his Nobel speech, “The Pretence of Knowledge” (1974):  

“The theory which has been guiding monetary and financial policy during the last thirty years… consists in the assertion that there exists a simple positive correlation between total employment and the size of the aggregate demand for goods and services; it leads to the belief that we can permanently assure full employment by maintaining total money expenditure at an appropriate level.”

Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong and others are now calling for bigger and better stimulus in the hopes of decreasing unemployment more rapidly. Most of this is wishful thinking or, should I say, value-signaling.  If you care about the poor and middle class, if you realize the irreparable harm that long periods (months, years?) of unemployment may cause, if you recognize the many unmet public sector needs we have, you would doubtless advocate more fiscal stimulus. In an equation: Good Person = Advocate of More Fiscal Stimulus. 

Understanding Efficient Markets

By Chidem Kurdas

Headline topics like derivatives are part of the larger issue of how markets function.  About this big question there’s been profound confusion in the past two years.  Peter Boettke’s article in the Winter 2010 issue of the Independent Review clarifies the muddle.

A particular mathematical interpretation of what an efficient market is has hogged the limelight. 

The US is “Taking on China”

by Andreas Hoffmann and Gunther Schnabl*

In a recent New York Times column Paul Krugman is “Taking on China” again. He argues that the Chinese dollar peg contributes to global imbalances, depressing US and world growth perspectives. Bashing China’s fixed exchange rate is also fashionable in academics. Bernanke blames China’s dollar peg for contributing to a “savings glut” that contributed to the US pre-crisis excesses. Dooley argues that China and other East Asian economies engage in mercantilist trade strategies. Bergsten wants to label China a “currency manipulator.”

We find these arguments unbalanced.

Out of Death Spiral, Into the Fire

by Chidem Kurdas

A big rate hike by an insurance company in California’s market for individually purchased health insurance provided a rationale for the new Obama care proposal. As Paul Krugman explains, the key issue is adverse selection: people who retain coverage tend to be those with high medical expenses.

Those with low expenses tend to drop out in hard times. That increases costs, causing premiums to rise, so even more  people drop out—an insurance death spiral.

The solution proposed in the administration bill – as in previous Congressional bills – is to make insurance mandatory.  With healthy people in the pool to share the costs, presumably premiums can be kept down. But even passionate proponents of compulsory insurance don’t really believe this,  so the President  proposes a new federal agency, the Health Insurance Rate Authority, to control price increases.

At this week’s NYU Market Institutions and Economic Processes colloquium, Gene Callahan made a comment that’s the best descriptor I’ve heard for the health insurance situation, though he was speaking of another topic: “However bad our current situation may seem, there is always some reform available that could make it even worse.”

Gene’s adage should be emblazoned on the walls of the room where the President’s health summit will take place this Thursday.

How Mathematical Economists Overreach

by Mario Rizzo

In recent months there has been a discussion both in the traditional media and in the blogosphere about why orthodox macroeconomics failed to predict or explain the financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession. Some of that discussion focused around Paul Krugman’s criticism that economics mistook  (mathematical) beauty for truth. Subsequently, there was a further discussion about the role of mathematics in economics.

Of course, this is a big topic. My task here is only to investigate, by means of a simple example, three claims made for the superiority of mathematics over ordinary (natural) language.

Mankiw And Meltzer Are Right! More Or Less

by Mario Rizzo  

As we have been saying here, the claims that the fiscal stimulus has saved or created X number of jobs is not a simple empirical question. It must be an inference from a model that tells us what would have happened in the absence of that stimulus. Collecting reports from various firms or local governments about their job situations will not do. At best these individual reports are based on pop-theories on the part of the reporters about what would have happened.

Understanding The “Sectoral Problem” In Business Cycles: A Note

by Mario Rizzo  

There has been some important discussion emanating from Paul Krugman’s unoriginal question implicitly about the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (as well as other sectoral theories of employment shifts both during and outside of business cycles). (See Econbrowser, Marginal Revolution, Econlog, Angry Bear, for examples.)   

His question, as Tyler Cowen states it: “…[W]hy, say, a housing boom – which requires shifting resources into housing – doesn’t produce the same kind of unemployment as a housing bust that shifts resources out of housing.” 

The Great Moderation In Macroeconomics

by Mario Rizzo  

I have now read both Paul Krugman’s New York Times essay on the state of macroeconomics and John Cochrane’s reply. They are each, in very different ways, quite disappointing. The level of argument is poor, the prejudices are simplistic, and the tones are annoying.  

What Is The Mechanism? Or Is It Just A Miracle?

by Mario Rizzo  

In Sunday’s New York Times, Paul Krugman says:  

“From the beginning, I argued that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, was too small. Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall.”  

He admits a mistake of a sort. However, he does say that fiscal stimulus is the “[l]ast and probably least, but by no means trivial…[of] the deliberate efforts of the government to pump up the economy.”  

The over-all theme of the article is that big government is our salvation.”[U]tter catastrophe no longer seems likely…Big Government, run by people who understand its virtues, is the reason why.”   

Post hoc ergo propter hoc?  

How do we know that fiscal stimulus played a non-trivial or any helpful role in the apparent easing of the rate of decline in economic activity?  I think we need a theory and evidence. 

DE HAUT EN BAS: Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman and John Maynard Keynes

by Mario Rizzo  

Recently Niall Ferguson wrote an interesting op-ed piece for the Financial Times about a debate of sorts he has been having with Paul Krugman on the spike in long-term interest rates and its relation to the large debt the U.S. Treasury must finance.  

In the course of that article Ferguson described Krugman’s attitude toward him (and his knowledge of economics) as de haut en bas. Although my poor French is good enough to know what this means, I still decided to check it out in The Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases. What I found was partly expected. Literally, it means “from above to below” or, in effect, “condescendingly.”  But the really interesting part is the example of use the dictionary gave:  

1995 Spectator Maynard Keynes…had a very de haut en bas view that he knew best what forms of culture should be supported (opera and ballet)…  

Shall we say that the apple never falls far from the tree?

Paul Krugman: Ipse Dixit

by Mario Rizzo  

Under other circumstances, Paul Krugman would have made an excellent pope if we judge by his economics pronouncements. Let me take two examples from a recent New York Times column. This is my interpretation of what he is saying.  

1. On the one hand, as Keynesians have always taught: There is no real danger of interest rates rising as the Treasury accumulates massive amounts of debt. This is because there is a vast surplus of (ex ante) savings out there just waiting to buy US treasuries at low interest rates. This is our official teaching.  

2. On the other hand, there are economists out there sowing the seeds of heresies. It is understandable in this time of unprecedented events that even wise economists might be tempted to stray from the Truth. They are making statements that confuse the faithful in their daily activities (of buying and selling treasuries). They are frightening them with stories of inflation and high interest rates. Many, perhaps most, of these teachers have evil motives.  These heretics are making it more difficult for the “church” to help us all to salvation.  

Read the article yourself. Isn’t this what he is saying?

Relative Prices Matter At All Times

by Mario Rizzo

Paul Krugman has written a column stating that wage cuts at this time are a bad idea. Following Keynes he claims that nominal cuts will do no good – they will not stimulate employment (or prevent unemployment) – because aggregate demand will fall. Real wages will thus remain unchanged.  

In part, Keynes directed this argument at a straw man.  The economist Arthur C. Pigou is supposed to have advocated wage cuts as the main cure for recessionary unemployment. This is not true.