Last Friday, TVO's show "The Agenda" broadcast an hour-long discussion on the limits of economics, sparked by Dan Ciuriak and John Curtis's working paper "What if everything we know about economic policy is wrong?"
The discussion featured University of Western Ontario economist David Laidler, Barnard College's Perry Mehrling, Thorsten Koeppl, a professor of economics at Queen's University, and Don Drummond, a Canadian economist with extensive experience working in government and industry. The video podcast is available here. (Scroll down to "Economics in Uncertain Times"). Nick thinks it's worth watching.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Thanks Frances! Yep, I tried but just couldn’t figure out how to post this, so Frances took pity on my techno-incompetence.
BTW, Thor is an economist, not a political scientist (unless he’s done a drastic switch recently). The TVO website has him as a poli sci.
I emailed David Laidler after the show, to ask him what economists of the 1920’s and 1930’s specifically he had in mind. David replied: Robertson, Hayek, Hawtey, Fisher Keynes, Currie, Young, etc., etc. – for starters try Robertson’s Theories of Banking Policy in Economica, ca. 1928, or the 3rd ed. of his “money”
Nick, I think you were just aspiring to something higher, i.e. a podcast link, which would have required downloading the podcast from the TVO site and then uploading it onto Worthwhile. The video file would be huge, though, and it would probably violate copyright anyways.
As you guessed, I was just copying the info on the TVO site and didn’t check anything.
I’m currently on something sort of like glorified dial-up, so alas I can’t see it…but speaking of the Limits to Economics, Greece is going to have a referendum on the bailout. Which I think is awesome even if they don’t reject it. (And, you can infer, I hope they do.)
Mandos, here’s a link to an audio podcast if that’s easier http://podcasts.tvo.org/theagenda/audio/1967981_48k.mp3
I’m not sure about “Limits to Economics”, but the Greek referendum will probably test the limits of German patience to continue lending (giving) Greece money.
Hey, I recognize that background behind Prof. Laidler!
You can also watch a streaming version here:
http://theagenda.tvo.org/episode/125157/the-limits-of-economics
Thanks Frances and Mike.
I think I agree with Mandos and Bob. But the short term pain really scares me, even if I think the long term pain of Greece reverting to the Drachma will be less than the long term pain of the Euro. Stock markets are tanking.
Yes, if the Greeks are trying to drive the Germans out of the Euro, they seem to be going about it the right way.
Hey;
I don’t know if anyone else has actually read the working paper in question, but I tried after an article on it appeared at globeandmail.com and found it to be very lacking. I think one of the most telling signs is that the authors take an AER paper arguing that Heckscher-Ohlin works and use a passage out of context to claim that traditional trade theory is harmful. At the very least, I would be very careful about implicitly endorsing the paper. I attempted to raise this issue and others (there is no shortage) with the Globe columnist, Barrie McKenna, but he did not reply to my emails once he established that I was not a professor or someone of importance.
I definitely agree that there are some limits to the profession, but motivating them through citing that paper isn’t appropriate, at least to me.
Andrew: I haven’t read it. But that’s what’s on The Agenda.
The one thing that the Agenda item establishes is why Drummond
is a go-to guy for media.
It’s great to have good broadband for the first time, so as to see the faces behind now familiar names. Thanks for making The Agenda available.
After reading the bottom of page 5, top of page 6, page 15, and page 18, I’d say the authors make a pretty good case that the problems are wealth/income inequality, too much currency denominated debt, and an economy that has gone from mostly supply constrained to mostly demand constrained (which is not really a problem).
“What if everything we know about economic policy is wrong?”
because real aggregate demand is NOT unlimited.