What is with the liberal economists suddenly
discovering, in wide-eyed shock, that economists who are attached to political campaigns spin things to favor their candidates? I don't like Doug Holtz-Eakins' candidate, nor for that matter, campaigns. But he's conducted himself with integrity and a fair amount of civility throughout this campaign. I've seen much nuttier economic pronouncements by Robert Rubin, like his extravagent attempts to claim virtually all of the 1990s economic boom for the Clinton tax hikes. I've certainly seen Austan Goolsbee say things that I'm pretty sure he would not be saying if he were attached to a campaign. Welcome to politics. I am skeptical that Brad De Long and Paul Krugman have never noticed the phenomenon before.
WHAT?!?
Two economists looking at the same set of data and coming to completely different conclusions? Preposterous!!!
Of course, you could line up all the economists in the world and they couldn't reach a conclusion.....
Care to link how nutty Goolsbee has been?
Or are you just going to assume its just as disingineous as Eakin
I don't see how the phrase "suddenly discovering" is warranted. I think adding these little 'digs' into your posts make you look a bit more biased against Krugman.
I agree with grisjuan. From reading Krugman's post, he's not so much shocked by the "spin" as he is trying to point out that nobody, not even Republicans, view the Heritage Foundation as "independent."
I think this post by Matt Yglesias gets at why people are reacting to Holtz-Eakin in this way.
If you'd read Peddling Prosperity you might realize that Krugman made your point on this almost 15 years ago by showing both Supply-Side and Rubinomics as political shams, so yeah, you probably should be skeptical he wasn't aware, it's kind of what he does.
If it's somehow wrong for Krugman to point out that Holtz-Eakin is conning his readers, why is it good for Mankiw to point out that Galbraith is conning his readers? Or is it so rare for a liberal economist to talk jive that when it does happen it's noteworthy? Whereas conservative economists are always talking jive? Is that your point?
Krugman actually had some nice links (in his blog at the time he won the nobel) to statements he made about political influence in campaings. He wrote something supporting Clinton in the '92 election and got a lot of press. But then when he actually saw the operation, he said that Rubin was a politican and would say things that went against empiricism. He saw some of the same things in the Regan admin. when he was in the government. He made a big deal about differentiating betwen the "political" guys and the "real world" guys. Holtz obviously fell in the former category for this campaign.