social science production (was: Dark Sides of 'Solidarity'?)

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Sat May 9 14:28:28 PDT 1998



>
>Nothing bad. I was trying to provoke DeLong, which
>turns out to be difficult, by implying Taylor was an
>example of an economist with unimpeachable analytical
>credentials who is not ensconced in a mainstream,
>hot-shit department.

He is an excellent economist of unimpeachable analytical credentials. He has decided that he is happier at the New School than at M.I.T.

Well, I'm hard to provoke because I can relate to Lance.

I long ago decided that my ideal job would be either Chair of an interdisciplinary major, or a joint appointment in history and economics. But interdisciplinary majors--because they lack senior faculty to lobby for them--have teeny weeny budgets. And history departments are now... shall I say relatively unfriendly to people who believe that you ought to try to count things and to presume that social being determines social consciousness.


>
>Another form of this came
>out in firms utilizing macro forecasting, to the effect that the
>newer people coming out of blue-chip departments weren't very
>useful because they couldn't do actual modelling, or because most
>macro modelling in the business world remains Keynesian.

As I believe Larry Meyer said in the _New Yorker_, the victory of Robert Lucas over the Keynesians at the end of the 1970s deprived him of any competition in the serious macroeconomic forecasting business for two decades...

Brad DeLong



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