Aladar Madarasz asks:  Would somebody give me the precise source of 
this statement of Prof.
Cochrane, please? I intend to amuse my students.


Here is a link that opens on the page with Cochrane's write-up. It is 
also posted on some blogs, including Brad DeLong's.

http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/283


And in response to David Hammes:

"Does anyone else share my sense of rather delightful irony when 
reading Cochrane's statement? It could have easily been written or 
spoken by Keynes. It rather piquantly sums up his approach to 
economic problems and economics, that is, if Skidelsky's biography an 
be believed."


Perhaps you have this in mind. Cochrane himself makes a point of 
quoting Keynes in concluding his commentary:

John Cochrane:  Here is some Keynesian wisdom I think we should accept.

"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old 
ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, 
into every corner of our minds."

"How can I accept the doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and 
beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be 
scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the 
modern world?"

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any 
intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

And the last quote has been bandied about by many 
non/anti-Keynesians, like for example, Mankiew.

I was dismayed by the open disdain for HET Cochrane expresses in the 
part I posted earlier. He and Luigi Zingales (another Chicago 
economist and the opponent who won the debate) are staunch free 
marketers and they confidently equate economic theorizing with that 
in natural sciences in the examples they use. I am curious to know 
what exactly is Milton Friedman to the Chicago school at present.

Sumitra Shah