===================== HES POSTING ==================== My name is Neil Buchanan, and I just joined this list today. The list's editors have provided me with "rules of conduct" for new members to follow, which include the suggestion that I introduce myself in my first message. My research is primarily in empirical macroeconomics, but I also have graduate training and continuing strong interests in the history of economic thought and political economy. I am currently a visiting professor in the Department of Economics at Barnard College. I have recently accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, half-time in the Economics Department and half-time as the director of a new research institute called the Center for Macroeconomic Policy. I have already begun preliminary work in the latter capacity, as part of which I posted a query about articles bemoaning "the sorry state of economics" to two other discussion lists. I am very greatful to Mary Schweitzer for cross-posting my request to this list; and I would like to thank the many members of HES who have privately sent suggestions pursuant to my request. There have been so many responses that it would be impractical for me to thank you all individually. You have helped me enormously. I should also say that I would not normally post to a list on the first day that I signed up. The custom of waiting thirty days, to get a sense of how the members of the list interact, seems to me to be a very sensible rule of thumb. However, given the unique way in which my posting arrived here, and given the spate of responses it has evoked, I have been encouraged by several members to jump right in. (If I have missed some of the discussion and inadvertently repeat arguments offered by others, I apologize.) My overall impression of the responses is that my request was generally accepted in the spirit in which it was intended. It really was a simple request for information, after all. However, a minority of the respondents have taken me to task for even thinking that such articles might be worth collecting. I guess it never occurred to anyone that I might have been collecting these articles in order to debunk them. The assumption--correct, as it turns out--was that I was a critic; and I, therefore, had to be put in my place. One person admonished me off-list, saying that "I don't really see what the point is of collecting a list of papers which complain. Let's get down to doing economics and doing it better". I find this level of hyper-sensitivity revealing. Chas Anderson responded on this list with a argument that is stunningly unvarnished: "Would you mind naming some 'of the most prominent mainstream economists' who are bemoaning the current state of economics? I find that individuals who write these types of works are usually those who have unsuccessfully struggled with the discipline and have turned to non-rigorous approaches to economics, such as offered by political or socio-economic tracts." So there we have argument #1: Those Who Complain About Economics Are Non-Rigorous _Social_ Scientists, i.e., Math Wimps. If I had tried to imagine the most bald-faced form of this argument, I could never have come up with anything so lacking in subtlety as this. It is also entirely uninformed, since some of the people who have written the most critical of these articles are the very people who mathematized the discipline: Samuelson, Leontief, Solow, just to name three Math Studs. On this list, Tony Brewer wrote the following: "Lists of people who have complained about the state of the subject seem to me to be of limited interest in themselves. "1. We all have a grouse from time to time don't we? Neil Buchanan's original post remarked that it was particularly economists over the age of 60 who were prone to complain. Don't you find that (some) older people in all walks of life complain that things aren't what they used to be? It is when the young people are dissatisfied that you need to worry." This is Argument #2, It's Really Just a Bunch of Old Complainers, So We Can Safely Ignore Them (just as we ignore old people in general). This is simply the invocation of a stereotype about older people, used as an _ad hominem_ attack to undermine their credibility as intellectual beings, What strikes me about this argument, though, is that one suspects that the argument could just as easily be reversed. Imagine that the complaints were coming from younger writers. The reponse becomes: "Don't you find that (some) younger people in all walks of life complain about things that they do not yet fully understand? It is when the older people are dissatisfied that you need to worry." In other words, it is always possible to use innuendo to discredit the messenger. Brewer goes on to ask: "2. Isn't a good researcher perennially dissatisfied with the existing state of knowledge? That is the motive to try to improve it. What are these people dissatisfied about? Are they all saying the same thing?" I couldn't agree more. This is one of the best reasons to collect these articles and analyze them; to see if they are all saying something similar--or not. "Is it 'not enough people are working in my field and citing my papers'?" Based on the papers of this genre that I've seen, the answer is no (not likely from Leontief, for example); but, again, that's what this research project is about. "3. Such grouses need a date and a context attached. We are historians, aren't we? My memory says that in the 1970s there was quite a widespread feeling that there was something wrong, but that it has declined sharply. In the 1970s people were complaining about general equilibrium (GE) theory, then seen as the pinnacle of the subject. Now, no one cares about GE theory one way or the other - the action is elsewhere. Is the incidence of complaining rising or falling? How does it compare with other fields?" I don't particularly agree with the example about GE, but again, good point. The "grouses" do live in their own times. Some of the articles that have been suggested to me come from well before the 1970's. I can't wait to take a look at them. I'll bet they reflect their times in revealing ways. Hence, Brewer's second and third points, while stated with clear hostility, are basically constructive and not arguments against grousing at all. Finally, Robin Foliet Neill offers this argument: "Neoclassical Economics has its limits. As an explanation of the evolution of economies it fails badly. Still, when it comes to designing policies to meet specifit problems, some strategic suspension of disbelief is in order. If we admit to the existence of a Heraclitean flux, we are doomed to paralysis. To take rational action at some point we have to make a proposal 'as if' certain ceteris paribus condition held, 'as if' there were certain known principles governing human motivation. For this reason there are economists who bemoan the inablity of Neoclassical Economics to represent reality, while, at the same time, they proceed with the use of that theory to make policy proposals. Brewer has a point. One has to look at the nature of the criticism, not just the fact that there is criticism, before listing the critic among those who disparage Neoclassical theory." Again, I'm truly surprised by the immediate assumption that I am planning to "list the critic among those who disagree with Neoclassical theory." Go back and read my original post, please. I say that not as a (disingenuous) claim that I don't have my own ideas about this subject, but simply to point out how quickly some people leapt to conclusions, based on a very short and simple posting. Still, Neill's post includes an argument, which is Argument #3, Neoclassical Economics May Not Be Perfect, But We All End Up Using It In Practice. I'd say that we all end up using some inelegant agglomeration of theories when confronted with a policy question; but why assume that we end up using a crude form of neoclassical theory? By my observation, at the macro policy level, most people are more Keynesian than neoclassical. But if I'm wrong, how is this an argument against people critiquing the current trends in economics? Finally, what does this argument mean in practice? To take a fairly recent political controversy, how does one use seat-of-the-pants neoclassicism to evaluate the proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction as part of the Flat Tax? The National Association of Realtors (those Marxists!!) used the simple neoclassical notion that eliminating a tax advantage would raise the effective price of a good and thus depress demand and lower the equilibrium price. Hall and Rabushka (the most prominent academic proponents of the Flat Tax) claimed that several general equilibrium effects would end up canceling each other out, so that the housing market would be unaffected. Both used some type of neoclassical theory to defend policy positions. What does that prove? This is, as ever, a fascinating discussion. It is not surprising to see the old insults rolled out against the critics of the mainstream. What is surprising is the immediate reaction against even a consideration of those criticisms. [I apologize for the length of this post. This is not my habit. I promise to limit myself to more manageable lengths in the future.] Respectfully, Neil Neil H. Buchanan Director, Center for Macroeconomic Policy Department of Economics University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201 For Fall semester, 1997: Department of Economics || (914) 876-8575 home Barnard College || 3009 Broadway || (212) 854-5005 office New York, New York 10027 || (212) 854-8947 fax ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]