Gregory Clark
Gregory Clark is a professor of economics at the University of California at Davis and the author of A Farewell to Alms.
Recently by Gregory Clark
Mar 6 2009, 2:16PM
DeLong/Boldrin stimulus smackdown
Brad Delong has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Obama stimulus package. Michele Boldrin was a signer of the Cato Institute sponsored NYT advert denouncing the stimulus. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about the stimulus, to which both of them responded. And on March 4 at the University of California-Davis they debated the benefits of the stimulus in the "Stimulus Smackdown." Video of the entire debate is available here.
Feb 23 2009, 3:33PM
Is there any hope for a fiscal responsibility summit?
US residents owe $35,000 each for the Federal debt. The Government has also created huge unfunded Social Security and Medicare entitlements: so the total obligation per person, which will eventually become further debt, is $168,000 (pdf), 3.8 times national income.
President Obama is holding a "fiscal responsibility summit" today to call a halt to the madness. But evidence from the thousand-year history of public debt in England suggests one thing -- the madness will only stop when creditors get worried enough about the solvency of the government to stop lending.
President Obama is holding a "fiscal responsibility summit" today to call a halt to the madness. But evidence from the thousand-year history of public debt in England suggests one thing -- the madness will only stop when creditors get worried enough about the solvency of the government to stop lending.
Feb 17 2009, 6:55AM
Picking sides (sort of)
Brad DeLong asks that I not just bemoan the exquisite irrelevance of most academic economists that the current crisis has revealed. Instead he asks that I take sides in the debate between Keynesians like him and Krugman and neoclassicals like Eugene Fama and John Cochrane on the efficacy of fiscal policy.
I am no macroeconomist. And I am reluctant to get trampled in a clash of macroeconomic titans. But I find Brad's various arguments, particularly his reductio ad absurdum, convincing. And I think Obama is right to try a fiscal stimulus from the following simple chain of argument:
I am no macroeconomist. And I am reluctant to get trampled in a clash of macroeconomic titans. But I find Brad's various arguments, particularly his reductio ad absurdum, convincing. And I think Obama is right to try a fiscal stimulus from the following simple chain of argument:
Feb 16 2009, 10:50AM
Dismal scientists: how the crash is reshaping economics
With the chattering classes consumed by concern for the devastated value of their 401K funds, and their suddenly precarious lifestyles, there has been much anger and scorn directed at those former masters of the universe, financiers.
But the shock to the world of finance has been echoed by a shock to the world of academic economics that is just as profound.
But the shock to the world of finance has been echoed by a shock to the world of academic economics that is just as profound.
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