[lbo-talk] Whither AEA?

[Brad DeLong]

>An entirely subjective report from the AEA (American Economics 
>Association) sessions of some trends (compared to say five years 
>ago).  I am not writing about the sessions organized by heterodox 
>groups as there were too few of them for generalizations.
>
>1) Overall:	The AEA continues to be ever more monolithic (as hard 
>as that is to belive).  Grad students and younger professors 
>especially show signs of the near-capture of graduate programs by 
>neo-classics and, as one professor put it, an almost boot-camp like 
>training regime.  The presenters (and even the presentations 
>themselves) also seem to have ever tighter funding ties to the 
>Federal Govt\Bretton Woods\consulting firm complex - without much 
>effort at outside balance.  In some cases, and in an earlier time of 
>academia, I believe questions of academic ethics and  intellectual 
>objectivity would have been raised by such ties....
>
>	...
>
>	I looked hard to see whether the 'Democrats' present had 
>found a newer voice - but I did not find it.  There was the much 
>reported deficit hawk presentation by Peter Orszag\Rubin (cited 
>Krugman in NYT of 1\6), lavish praise for Greenspan by Yellin, 'more 
>of the same' by Rivlin, others talked of the need to "fix" Social 
>Security, etc.  There was no effort to even appear to have learned 
>some 'lessons', in fact some younger 'Democrats' showed a full 
>display of their renowned smug arrogance - from the podium.  [Also, 
>anyone know anything about the Peter Orszag and his brother 
>Jonathan?  I see that they were Clinton advisors and that now they, 
>Laura Tyson, and Stiglitz have a private 'consulting firm' in the 
>Bay Area offering advice and lobbying to their former institutions. 
>I suspect we will hear more of them.]
>
>...
>4)	"Globalization" :	There were far more international 
>sessions (and participants) than there were say 10 years ago.  Yet 
>they were almost exclusively organized by and with either academics 
>who are currently paid as consultants with the Bretton Woods 
>institutions or the BW staff themselves.  Unlike east coast 
>conferences, no current senior BW staff actually came to California 
>- all this was handled either by former staff/now consultants 
>(Rogoff, Edwards), senior consultants (Kaminsky), soon-to-be staff 
>(Aizenman), or Bush admin officials (Kristen Forbes).  In one 
>session, even a majority of the participants appeared to be either 
>BW staff or mid-level officials from newly independent countries 
>brought to the conference on a "training" program.
>
>Some of these same senior consultants\employees were on the Program 
>Committee that framed these sessions.  Only one mild dissenter was 
>included (Rodrik; I don't think Bhagwati really qualifies).  There 
>was no effort to represent the now very large dissenting movements 
>from the Washington Consensus, and even Stiglitz and Sachs were 
>referred to (by name, behind their backs) only in sneering terms. 
>One panel on "Capital Liberalization" seemed designed only to refute 
>Stiglitz and promote a new effort by the IMF to further "liberalize" 
>banking in Latin America [there are, apparently, some specific 
>not-yet-public proposals].
>
>In some cases the panels, of IMF employees and consultants, were 
>designed not just to present IMF ideas and policies but to actually 
>assess the performance of their employer.  In many cases, throughout 
>the conference, there was no public disclosure of a financial 
>relationship that one knows of only through separate sources.
>
>One exception was Dani Rodrik (on global issues), although he was 
>critical only on the narrowest grounds, his comments were clear and 
>decisive.

Are you saying that Rodrik, Rogoff, Edwards, Forbes, Kaminsky, 
Aizenman, Stiglitz, Sachs, Orszag I, Orszag II, Yellen, and Tyson are 
in the tank? It's simply not true.

Peter Orszag is our much admired fair-haired boy of the moment: he's 
brilliant, works like a dog, has the right pro-development and 
pro-egalitarian values, is desperate to figure out a way to save the 
financing of the social insurance state, and has kept his sense of 
humor. He is definitely a guy to watch. Anyone who can be so admired 
by both Joe Stiglitz and Bob Rubin is definitely a guy to watch...

-- 

Yours,

Brad DeLong