Is it not the case that to this day most major macroeconometric forecasting models, such as DRI's, WEFA's, the Fed's, etc. are all still humongous Rube Goldberg variations on an ISLM theme? Lucas won in theory but lost in practice. In fact, didn't he say when he won the Nobel Prize something to the effect that Keynes was still the dominant force in macroeconomics (don't remember the exact quote now)? Barkley Rosser On Sat, 9 May 1998 14:28:28 -0700 Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> >
> >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
>
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu