Sep 8, 2011

Krugman's EEA presidential address

[S]uccess in academic economics came from publishing “hard” papers — meaning papers that used rigorous and preferably difficult mathematics. This in itself biased publication toward equilibrium business cycle models, as opposed to the ad hoc modeling typical of what I consider useful macroeconomics. Graduate education, in turn, became increasingly focused on the kind of work that could get published and lead to tenure. Successive cohorts of students were trained only in the newly rigorous version of macro, which had lost touch with the field's previous intellectual achievements. From Krugman's EAA Presidential address. Source
I can't but feel sorry about the state of macroeconomic theory. A radical transformation is needed, and not necessarily from micro-foundations.  

No comments:

Post a Comment