One might think, in the wake of revelations of flaws in the intellectual underpinnings for austerity—flaws that include what appear to be cherry-picked data—and indeed the apparent failure of austerity policies in actual experience,[1] that the elite, concerned as ever for the economic health of our society, and about putting people back to work, might be interested in what economists have to say now. What should we do now, they might ask. Or perhaps, they could score points on C-SPAN denouncing economists for failing to predict the financial crisis in the first place,[2] and now for the most listened-to part of their profession being wrong about austerity. Why, the point-scorers might ask, should we listen to economists now, especially when they apparently still don’t know what to do?[3]
- [1]Simon Kennedy, “Krugman Wishes He Were Wrong Amid EU Austerity Backlash,” Bloomberg, October 12, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/krugman-wishes-he-was-wrong-amid-eu-austerity-backlash.html; Mike Konczal, “Reinhart/Rogoff-gate isn’t the first time austerians have used bad data,” Washington Post, April 20, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/20/reinhartrogoff-gate-isnt-the-first-time-austerians-have-used-bad-data/; Paul Krugman, “The Excel Depression,” New York Times, April 18, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-the-excel-depression.html; Paul Krugman, “Academic Non-Obscurity,” New York Times, April 25, 2013, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/academic-non-obscurity/; Paul Krugman, “The 1 Percent’ Solution,” New York Times, April 25, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/krugman-the-one-percents-solution.html; Matthew O’Brien, “Who is Defending Austerity Now?” Atlantic, April 22, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-excel-error-heard-round-the-world/275200/; Lynn Stuart Parramore, “Meet the 28-year-old Student Who Exposed Two Harvard Professors Whose Shoddy Research Drove Global Austerity,” Alternet, April 18, 2013, http://www.alternet.org/economy/meet-28-year-old-student-who-exposed-two-harvard-professors-whose-shoddy-research-drove; Andreas Whittam Smith, “The age of austerity is over. Why? It doesn’t work,” Independent, April 25, 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-age-of-austerity-is-over-why-it-doesnt-work-8586201.html↩
- [2]Paul Krugman, “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” New York Times, September 2, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html↩
- [3]Eduardo Porter, “Economists Agree: Solutions Are Elusive, New York Times, April 23, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/solutions-remain-elusive-after-financial-crisis.html↩