Sunday, November 13, 2011

Who needs identification strategies, anyway!

Menzie Chinn critiques an extremely problematic fiscal multiplier study by the Phoenix Center, which has been promoted by the Mises Institute.

With the increased prominence of the Austrian school, Austrians really can't afford to be associated with such low quality work. You're going to lose your credibility very fast if this sort of thing happens a lot.

Also - does anyone have a pdf of the Conley-Dupor paper? I was looking for it the other day and the site gives me an error message.

3 comments:

  1. Jonathan M.F. CatalanNovember 13, 2011 at 12:06 PM

    I see it the other way around. Five years ago who in the Austrian School would have even approached an empirical study like this? Now, at least they're looking at "low quality" work (not saying it's not; I just rather not pass judgment). I think it's a sign of "progress".

    I've been meaning to write an article on the role of data in Austrian economics, but I haven't gotten around to it (and the Mises Institute rejected an article of mine on Friedman and Kraus' book on the financial crisis... so, now I'm a bit nervous to submit something else). No room for slightly divergent opinions, I guess.

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  2. I know a good many Austrian economists who would put the barrier one step further back: Austrians really can't afford to be associated with the Mises Institute!

    (True story: I recently had a *libertarian* academic tell me to yank every association with the Mises Institute from my resume, since they were all black marks.)

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  3. Gene thank you for the story, now I feel much more intelligent.

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