http://www.asyura2.com/12/hasan76/msg/450.html
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(回答先: 日銀総裁：企業マインド含め影響を注視−円高の日本経済への影響 99％誤解されている「流動性の罠」 投稿者 MR 日時 2012 年 6 月 04 日 15:59:17)
http://econdays.net/?p=6651
クルーグマン「緊縮の底意」
（NYT，2012年5月31日）
(Paul Krugman, “The Austerity Agenda,” New York Times, May 31, 2012.)
【アメリカでもイギリスでも，緊縮策を推し進める狙いは，債務や赤字の解決にはない．狙いは，債務パニックを口実にして，社会プログラムをつぶすことだ．In America and in Britain, the push for austerity is not really about debt and deficits. It’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs.】
ロンドンにて
「不況期ではなく景気過熱期こそ，緊縮すべき時なのです」――ジョン・メイナード・ケインズは75年前にそう語った．彼は正しかった．長期的に赤字問題があるとしても――ないところなんてある？――経済が深く停滞しているさなかに支出を削減するのは，自滅的な戦略だ．不況をいっそう深めるだけなんだから．
じゃあ，どうしてイギリスはまさにやるべきでないことをそっくり実行してるんだろう？ スペイン政府やカリフォルニア州政府とちがって，イギリス政府は自由に借り入れできる．金利は歴史的な低水準だ．だったら，どうしてそのイギリス政府は経済がもっと力をつけるのを待たずに急速に投資を減らして何10万という公共部門の雇用をなくしていってるんだろう？
ここ数日というもの，ぼくはデヴィッド・キャメロン首相の政府を支持してる人たちを何人もつかまえて，その質問をぶつけている．あるときは個人的に，あるときはTVで．そうして交わした会話は，きまって同じ流れをたどった：まず，相手はダメな喩えから入り，最後には隠れていた動機を暴露する．
ダメな喩えの方は，きっとみんな何度も聞かされていることだろう．一国の経済の債務問題を個々の家庭の借金問題になぞらえる例の喩えだ．話はこう進む――借金がかさんでいる家計は，ヒモをしっかり締めなくちゃいけない．だから，借金がかさんでいるイギリス全体も――たしかにかさんでるけど，大半は公的債務じゃなくて民間債務なんだけどね――当然，同じようにすべきでしょう？ この喩えのどこが間違ってるって言うんです？
答えはこうだ．経済は，借金漬けの家計とはちがう．ぼくらの債務は大半がお互いに負っているお金だ．さらに重要な点として，ぼくらの所得の大半は，お互いにものを売ることでうまれている．キミの支出がぼくの所得になるし，ぼくの支出はキミの所得になる．
じゃあ，負債を支払おうとしてみんながいっせいに支出を切り詰めたらどうなる？ 答え：みんなの所得が下がる――キミが支出を控えたおかげでぼくの所得は下がり，ぼくが支出を控えたおかげでキミの所得は下がる．そして，ぼくらの所得が減るにつれて，債務問題は改善するどころかいっそう悪化する．
これは新しい知見じゃない．アメリカの偉大な経済学者アーヴィン・フィッシャーが1933年にとっくに説明しつくしてる．「債務デフレ」とみずから呼ぶものについて，フィッシャーは「債務者が支払えば支払うほど，借金が増していく」というピリッとしたスローガンでまとめている．このところのいろんな出来事，とりわけ欧州における緊縮による死の螺旋は，このフィッシャーの洞察が正しいことを劇的なまでに例証してしまっている．
この話には，はっきりした教訓がある：「民間部門が死にものぐるいで債務を支払おうとするとき，公共部門はその反対をするべきである――民間部門がしない・できないときに支出をするべきである」という教訓だ．ひとたび経済が回復したときには，全力で財政を均衡させようじゃないか――でもいまはダメよ．不況期じゃなく過熱期こそ，緊縮すべき時なんだから．
すでに言ったように，これは新しい知見なんかじゃない．だったら，どうしてこうも大勢の政治家たちが不況さなかに緊縮を推し進めようと言い張ってるんだろう？ それに，理論と歴史の教えを実地の経験が確証したというのに，どうして彼らは方針を変えないんだろう？
いや，まさにそこが話の興味深くなるところなんだよ．「緊縮屋」どもに自分たちの喩えのダメさ下限を突きつけると，彼らはほぼ決まってこんな台詞を断言に立てこもる：「ですが，政府のサイズを小さくすることが肝心なんですよ」
さて．こうした断言は，経済危機そのものが政府縮小の必要性を実証しているんだという主張といっしょに出てくることが多い．でも，それはあからさまにまちがってる．いちばんうまく嵐を切り抜けた欧州の国々に目を向けてみよう．そのリストの上位に入っているのは，スウェーデンとかオーストリアといった大きな政府の国々じゃないか．
また，他方で，保守派連中が危機以前にもてはやしていた国々に目をやろう．イギリスの大蔵大臣にして現行の経済政策を設計した人物でもあるジョージ・オズボーンは，アイルランドのことを「可能性の芸実の輝ける実例」だなんて言っていたんだよ．その一方で，カトー・インスティテュートはアイスランドの低税率を称えて，他の工業国も「アイスランドの成功から学ぶ」ように望んでいた．
このように，イギリスにおける緊縮への原動力は，実は債務や赤字をめぐるものなんかじゃあ全然ない．債務パニックを口実に利用して，社会プログラムを解体してやろうって話なんだ．そして，もちろん，これはアメリカでいままで起きてきたこととそっくり同じだ．
イギリスの保守派たちに公平を期すと，アメリカの同類たちにほどには粗雑じゃない．アメリカの保守派たちは，赤字の害悪について憤慨した舌の根の乾かぬうちに，富裕層減税を要求しだすからね（とはいえ，キャメロン政権は最高税率を大幅に引き下げているけど）．また，一般に，イギリスの保守派たちはアメリカの右派ほどには金持ちを助け貧しきをくじく熱意をもっていない．それでも，政策の方向は同じだ――だから，緊縮を求める訴えの不誠実さも根本部分で変わりない．
そこで大きな問いがでてくる．緊縮策が経済回復をもたらすのに盛大に失敗したことで，「プランB」への切り替えは起きるだろうか？ たぶん起きる．でも，ぼくの推測では，そうしたプランが公表されたとしても，たいしたものにはならないだろう．だって，経済回復が狙いになったためしがないんだから．緊縮策の原動力は，この危機を利用してやろうというものであって，危機を解決しようってものじゃなかった．それはいまも変わらない．
クルーグマン「『お手本』としての日本」（2012年5月30日）
(Paul Krugman, “Japan as ‘Role Model’“, May 30, 2012, 2:18 AM)
マーティン・ウルフとのインタビューで，日本の政策について天皇にごめんなさいしないといけないとか冗談を言った――日本の政策がよかったからじゃなくて，流動性の罠に対応したぼくらの政策が輪をかけてひどかったからだ．ぼくが何について言ってるのか，ちょっと指標をみてっもらうとはかどるかもしれない．
というわけで，ここに掲げたのは1991年以降の日本とアメリカにおける15歳〜64歳の男性の雇用-対-人口の比率だ．この1991年は，日本の苦境がはじまった年だとしばしば考えられている．なんで男女両方じゃなくて男性だけなの？ しかも年齢を限定してるのはなんで？ 基本的には，社会変動と人口変動を捨象するためだ――日本は女性の賃金労働参加の面で，アメリカより遅れているし，周知のとおり，急速に高齢化がすすんでもいる．働き盛りの男性だけが重要だとほのめかしたいわけじゃない．これはたんに比較的に明快な指標になってるというだけのことだ．さて，その指標はこんな感じ：
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/29/opinion/052912krugman1/052912krugman1-blog480.jpg
（青い線が日本，赤い線がアメリカ；Source: OECD i-Library）
さんざん苦難を味わってきたにも関わらず，日本はいまぼくらが被っているような雇用の崩壊を一度も経験していない．日本よりもぼくらの方がはるかにヒドイ実績だというのは，そういう意味だ．
すでに言ったように，あるイミで，日本はもはや〔ああなってはならないという〕訓話ではない．たしかにみじめな話ではあるけれど，ぼくらと比べると，ほとんどお手本に近いものに映る．
http://econdays.net/?p=6641
クルーグマン「大物財政ペテン師たち」（NYT，2012年5月27日）
(Paul Krugman, “Big Fiscal Phonies,” New York Times, May 27, 2012)
さくっとクイズ：共和党のニュージャージー州知事クリス・クリスティーをピッタリ言い表す4拍の単語はなぁに？ 語末は「イ」段．
もちろん，正解は「ごろつき」だ．でも，このところの州の財政をめぐる論議をみるにつけ，「ペテン師」も同じくらい正しいね．そして，クリスティー氏に当てはまる形容は彼の政党にも当てはまる．
いままで，財政ペテン師どもの攻撃は主に州の問題より全米の問題だった．下院予算委員会議長のポール・ライアンがその好例．このコラムをいつもごらんいただいてる読者には周知のとおり，ライアン氏はどういうわけか厳格な財政タカ派だともっぱらの評判を勝ち取っているけれど，彼のだした提案はとうてい赤字削減に焦点を置いているとは言い難い．彼の提案は，富裕層に減税する一方で，貧困者や不運な人たちへの援助を切り詰めるというシロモノだ．それどころか，ライアン氏の「魔法のアスタリスク」――彼がこれと特定するのを拒んでいる歳入増加や支出削減の主張――をはぎとってしまえば，あとに残るのは連邦債務を削減するどころか増加させてしまう計画ばかりだ．
同じことは，ミット・ロムニーにも言える．彼は財政を均衡させると主張してるけれど，実際に提案していることと言えば，もっぱら巨額の減税（もちろん企業とお金持ちの減税）をすることと，防衛費を削らないという約束だ．
このように，ライアン氏もロムニー氏も，ニセモノの財政タカ派だ．彼らがまがい物だっていう証拠は，たんにそろばん勘定がなっちゃいない点だけじゃない．口ではさんざん赤字予算を懸念しているとは言うけれど，その懸念とやらは，自分たちの金銭的支援者と自分が望むことを諦める動機になるほどには深刻じゃないっていう事実もその証拠だ．彼らは赤ちゃんの口元から食べ物を奪い取る意思なら持ち合わせている（文字通りに，重要な栄養援助プログラムの削減によって奪うつもりだ）．そんなことも，彼らの視点からはいいことなんだ――ライアン氏に言わせると，社会的なセーフティネットは「健常者を依存と安逸にまどろませるハンモック」になるべきではないんだって．そのくせ，利益とキャピタル・ゲインの税率を低いまま維持すること，さらにはもっと減税することは神聖なつとめらしい．
ただ，ライアン氏もロムニー氏も，全米の聴衆に向かって演技している．じゃあ，真の財政的制約に対処しなきゃいけない共和党の知事たちはそれとちがうんだろうか？ まあ，「ちがう」という趣旨の主張はこれまでいろいろとなされてきた．とくに，クリスティー氏は，幅広い人々によって――とくに当のご本人によって――キツい選択をする意思をもった政治家の模範だともちあげられてきた．
でも，先週のこと，彼が実際にキツい選択を強いられる場面がやってきた．世間に向かってがなり立てる行状を別にしても，自分もまた標準的な財政ペテン師にすぎないことを彼みずから立証してみせた．
事情は次のとおり：クリスティー氏は，「ジャージーの復活」と称するものを喧伝してきた．このまえ〔質問してきた学生を公然と「バカ」呼ばわりして〕言葉を荒げた一件の前から，彼がいったい何のことを言っているのかは，分かりづらかった：そりゃまあ，クリスティー氏が就任してから，あの狭いなかに豪邸が建ち並ぶ州で雇用が増えたのはたしかだ．でも，全米とくらべても，当然の比較対象とすべきニューヨークやコネティカットと比べても，その伸びは遅れている．
なのに，クリスティー氏は頑としてニュージャージーは復活しつつあるんだ，これで――みなさんお察しのとおり――圧倒的に富裕層を利する減税の余地ができるんだと言い張った．
そこに先週，現実が直撃した：同州の独立・超党派の財政アナリストであるデヴィッド・ローゼンが，これでは13億ドルの不足になると議員たちに告げたんだ．それで，州知事はどう応じたか？
まずは，悪い知らせのメッセンジャーを攻撃した．クリスティー氏に言わせれば，ローゼン氏は――熟練の公僕であり彼の事務所はたいてい州知事どのより正確な財政予測を立ててきた実績があるというのに――「数字の死神博士」なんだとさ．慎み深い言葉選びですわね．
ところで，クリスティー氏自身の職員たちですら，大幅な予算不足を予測している．ただローゼン氏ほど巨額じゃないだけだ．2つの大手信用格付け機関，ムーディーズとスタンダード＆プアーズも，つい先日，ニュージャージーの財政状況について警告を発している．この状況を S&P は「構造的に不均衡」と述べている．知事による楽観的な歳入の想定がその不均衡の理由だ．
このとおり，ニュージャージーはいまも厳しい財政状況にある．じゃあ，このタフな口ぶりの知事には，じぶんのお気に入りの減税を再考する気があるだろうか？――「うっせーんだよゥ」 再考する代わりに，彼は一発逆転の財政の秘密兵器でその穴を埋めたがっている．これには，輸送投資のための借り入れを減らしクリーンエネルギー・プログラムから他に資金を振り向けるという公約の破棄も含まれる．財政の責任よサラバってわけ．
クリスティー氏が財政上の癇癪を起こしたことで，彼がロムニーの競争相手になるのではという推測も消えてなくなるだろうか？ ぼくにはわからない．でも，それは別に大事なことじゃない：ロムニー氏の相手が誰になろうと，彼／彼女は財政破り逆ロビン・フッド政策と立派に元気に協調することだろう．この政策は，もちろんロムニー前知事が勝利すれば実現することになる．
現代アメリカの右派は赤字なんて気にしないし，気にしたことなんて一度もない．債務についてあれこれ語るのも，メディケア，メディケイド，社会保障制度，フードスタンプを攻撃する口実にすぎない．クリスティー氏について言えば，そうね，彼もまた財政ペテン師の一人にすぎない．他とちがってるのは罵倒がお好きなところだけだ．
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/022acf50-a4d1-11e1-9a94-00144feabdc0.html
Lunch with the FT: Paul Krugman
By Martin Wolf
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/022acf50-a4d1-11e1-9a94-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1wsiCnfAX
The Nobel Prize-winning professor of economics talks to Martin Wolf about what Japan got right, what the Federal Reserve got wrong and how the eurozone can be saved
I enter the Landmarc restaurant, at the Time Warner Center, on Columbus Circle, New York, where I have agreed to meet for lunch with Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel laureate in economics, Princeton professor of economics and international affairs, and liberal columnist of the New York Times. I know nothing about this bistro-style restaurant, which my guest has chosen for its convenience to a television interview he has just completed. The restaurant is impersonal and – it’s a late lunch, at two o’clock – beginning to empty.
Krugman, 59, most hated and most admired columnist in the US, rumpled and professorial, is sitting at a small table in the middle of the restaurant, working on his laptop. It is Thursday and he is writing his column. What, I ask, is it on? “It’s going to be Europe,” he replies. “Partly because it is coming to a head, partly because I am a little overstretched and that’s what I’m ready for. So I’m going to do that one.” I understand the feeling of being overstretched: Krugman is writing two columns a week, posting regularly on his blog, writing popular books and teaching.
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So, I ask, will the argument of the column be that “it’s all over” for the eurozone?
“No. I don’t think they can save Greece but they can still save the rest if they’re willing to offer open-ended financing and macroeconomic expansion.” But this would mean persuading the Germans to change their philosophy of economic life. “Well, the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind; the prospect of a collapse of the euro might concentrate their minds.”
I change the subject to ask how he has coped with the shift from being predominently an academic economist to being the leading spokesman for the liberal cause. How did this happen? “Well, it was funny,” he responds. “I was doing a column for Slate and then a bit for Fortune, towards the end, and then the [New York] Times came along with this offer. It was 1999. We thought I’d be writing about the follies of dotcoms and stuff like that and then it turns out that it’s a much more awesome and ominous responsibility. It was nothing I ever planned.
“Really, the rough period was the first [George W] Bush term when it seemed like the whole world was mad, save me, or vice-versa, and it’s gotten easier.
“I have to say, though, that the economic crisis has played into the things that I was worrying about 15 years ago. It’s been almost alarmingly easy to figure out what to say. But it’s a very strange thing: it’s not at all what I was imagining I was going to be doing with my life.”
We have already gone straight into the issues. The conversation turns to the Japanese crisis of the 1990s. In retrospect, I suggest, the Japanese seem to have managed the aftermath of their crisis quite well.
He agrees. “What we thought was that Japan was a cautionary tale. It has turned into Japan as almost a role model. They never had as big a slump as we have had. They managed to have growing per capita income through most of what we call their ‘lost decade’. My running joke is that the group of us who were worried about Japan a dozen years ago ought to go to Tokyo and apologise to the emperor. We’ve done worse than they ever did. When people ask: might we become Japan? I say: I wish we could become Japan.”
At this point we order: salade niçoise for Krugman; foie gras terrine for me; and a bottle of sparkling water. This is definitely not going to be up to the gourmet standards of some lunches with the FT.
I return to our discussion. I ask whether he is not being unfair to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve and a former colleague at Princeton. After all, Bernanke has avoided deflation in the US. Krugman responds swiftly: “We don’t care about deflation because having a small minus, instead of a small plus, makes a huge difference to the world. We worry about deflation because we think it is a reason why one has a persistently depressed economy. While we may not have deflation, we have a persistently depressed economy. So what difference does it make?”
But surely, I argue, the Fed did deliver negative real interest rates by cutting rates quickly and avoiding deflation. This prods Krugman into rare praise: “I have actually very few complaints about monetary policy here through some point in 2009. I thought that Ben [Bernanke] responded aggressively and forcefully, which was the right thing to do. He stepped in with the original QE [quantitative easing] and stabilised the economy.
“The question is, what did he do as we started to look more and more like Japan? At that point the logic says you have to find a way to get some traction. Fiscal policy might be great. But if you’re not getting it you should be doing something on the Fed side and I think that logic becomes stronger and stronger as the years go by. And it’s sad to see that the Fed has largely washed its hands of responsibility for getting us out of the slump.
“I hope that some day Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen [vice-chair of the Fed] will think that I’ve done them a favour. There’s all this sniping from the hard money guys and somebody needs to say, ‘Actually, no, if we actually think about this realistically, you’re doing too little and not too much.’”
So what, I wonder, would he do if he were put in charge? He says he would add maybe another $2tn to the Fed’s balance sheet, by purchasing a wider range of assets, including more private sector liabilities. “But mostly”, he continues, “you work on the expectations side. I think mostly what you really need to do is to signal that you’re going to keep your foot on the gas pedal.”
It does not even matter, he believes, if people are not sure the Fed will carry through. They just have to believe it might happen. “So if Ben Bernanke made a statement, or the board made a statement, saying that we are reconsidering our views about the inflation target, even if we don’t have a credible commitment that they’re going to deliver 3.7 per cent annual inflation over five years, that’s still a help.”
In his new book, End this Depression Now!, Krugman dismisses contemporary macroeconomic theory. He is also critical of the idea that policy credibility matters. On this he says: “Credibility sounds great, but the evidence that anti-inflationary credibility is actually an important thing in the real world is basically nil.”
We return, inevitably, to the topic of the day. Would he conclude that the European currency union was a mistake? “Yes, I think we’ve been asking, whose fault is this crisis? And I think it was basically fated, from the day the Maastricht Treaty was signed. Now, I think it might be rescuable with a higher inflation target, which is a poor second best to having a fiscal union. But no, the setup is fundamentally not workable.
“What’s interesting is that the euro itself created the asymmetric shocks that are now destroying it [via the capital flows it engendered]. Not only have they created something incapable of dealing with shocks but the creation engendered the shocks that are destroying it.”
By this stage, I have long since finished my terrine. I always eat quickly. But Krugman is eating his salad very slowly, as he talks. He has to wave away waiters several times. The restaurant is now quite empty. When the meal is finally cleared, I order a double espresso, while he orders a regular filter coffee.
We discuss briefly the future of macroeconomics: his hopes rest on younger economists doing empirical work. “There are young people doing some really excellent research. Most of it, there are a few exceptions, but what’s really driving the cutting edge is empirical work.” Krugman points out that the prestigious Bates Clark medal, awarded to economists under 40 (he won it in 1991), “has been going overwhelmingly to people doing very empirical stuff. And I think that’s the salvation of economics in the long run, if there is a long run, because things are going so badly.”
We turn to his view of US politics. How does he explain what is going on?
He responds that “a couple of things do seem to operate here. One is money. There are think-tanks which don’t actually do a whole lot of thinking but which are lavishly financed ... You can have a lot of fun if you go back and look at what they were saying, and it’s hilarious, about Iceland as a role model, or the wonders of the Irish system.
“And then there is something about the appeal of this hard-money, gold-standard thing and it’s always had an appeal, but it seems even stronger now. I would have thought that the fact that people like me have been so much closer to [being] right on inflation and interest rates would move a substantial number of people into thinking that maybe their preconceptions were not right.” But no.
I ask whether he is disheartened by the failure of people on his side of the political argument to stand up for what they believe in. After all, I note, you must be disappointed by the willingness to accept the need to slash entitlement spending – rather than to raise taxes – when the federal tax ratio is exceptionally low and there have been extraordinary shifts in the distribution of income. Does Krugman think that’s all about money?
“These things are always complicated but some of it is about money. Look, with even a few mild words of reproof, Obama has lost a huge funding source from Wall Street. And you have got to give the right credit: they play a long game. They’ve spent 40 and more years working on ‘government is bad’ or ‘taxes are bad.’”
But, he continues, “there is an organised progressive infrastructure now in the way that there was not. It’s tiny and ill-funded, compared with the other side, but it’s actually also smarter than the other side. I certainly feel personally that, although I’m not getting the policies I wanted, I am getting listened to in a way that was not true even two years ago.”
So how does Krugman cope with the hatred he attracts? “2002 to 2004 were by far the worst, and that was mostly not about economics, that was about the fact that I was pretty much alone in saying we’d been lied into [going to] war. But you do need to develop a thick skin. I’ve partly developed the attitude that if I don’t get a whole lot of hysterical pushback then I probably have wasted the space in the column.
“I’ve been in this a long time and it was really shocking in the beginning. But eventually you get acclimated. I think it scares a lot of people off. I think a lot of journalists, the first time they publish something even mildly critical of rightwing orthodoxy, they hit this firestorm and they never come back. They run scared ever after. But I’m long past that point.”
I ask him about his punchy and provocative style. How conscious is it? “I had already done some of it in Slate so I had learned some of it, but this [writing for the NYT] is even tighter. There is a craftsmanship of making it work so that somebody, whose ordinary instinct is to think oh, economics, boring, will actually read through your piece.”
What fascinates me, I say, is how he manages the output, particularly the quantity of blogging he is doing. Obviously Krugman is quicker than most people but how does he get time for anything else?
“I am still teaching. I probably work 70 hours a week but not 100 hours a week. But I am damned fast. I write faster than just about anybody in journalism, it turns out, which is interesting.”
Krugman is famous for resisting structural explanations for the high levels of unemployment. But what does he think of the view that our economies are dangerously addicted to financial and asset price “bubbles”? He replies by asking whether I have ever seen the satirical publication The Onion. “Quite early on they had the perfect headline, which was, ‘Recession Ravaged Nation Demands New Bubble to Invest In.’”
So how’s his new book doing? “It’s good. It’s funny. We’re on the bestseller list in the US. But it’s selling like hotcakes in Europe. We’re in fourth printing in Spain and they’re about to put ads on the sides of Madrid buses, apparently.”
This brings us back to the eurozone crisis. I remark that the Germans are now in a position of having to choose between permanently bailing out those they regard as deadbeats or breaking it up, causing an immense economic and political mess. I feel quite sorry for them.
He responds: “I remember there was a humorous column in the Independent which would have been in about 1992 or thereabouts, about the decision to give the Booker Prize to the Maastricht Treaty – a postmodern novel in strict treaty form. And throughout the novel one senses, in the background, powerful forces with unknown motives. Who are these forces, what do they want? We never learn.
“It was a wonderful satire.”
Coffees are finished. We walk out from an empty restaurant, Krugman to return to Princeton and his column, I to return to the New York offices of the Financial Times. The crises go on. He is the pundit conservatives detest and liberals cheer. In the US anybody can become anything. A Nobel Prize-winning economic theorist can even become the country’s most controversial columnist.
Martin Wolf is the FT’s chief economics commentator
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Young economists: The empiricists strike back
The empirical work of young economists, as championed by Paul Krugman, is influencing policy debates. Here are some names to watch, say FT leader writers Martin Sandbu and Ferdinando Giugliano.
Esther Duflo, 39, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is co-founder of its Poverty Action Lab. She leads a new trend of applying experimental research methods to anti-poverty policies to find out empirically what works best for economic development. In 2010 she won the John Bates Clark medal, awarded by the American Economics Association to the best US-based economist under 40. Her book Poor Economics (written with MIT colleague Abhijit Banerjee) won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011.
©Eyevine
Economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers
Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson, 39 and 40, a couple in life and in economics, are at the University of Pennsylvania. They study the labour market effects of public policy, in particular how this impacts women and family relationships. They are also at the forefront of “happiness economics” and challenge the “Easterlin paradox” – conventional wisdom saying that above a certain level, a country’s income per capita has little effect on well-being.
Emmanuel Saez, 39, is a French-born economist and professor at Berkeley, and a winner of the John Bates Clark medal. His work concentrates on income inequality and what governments can do to reduce it. Saez has shown that inequality in the US is now at a level which is nearly as high as before the Great Depression. To reverse this, Saez advocates a level of tax that is higher than that currently in place in many western countries – his “optimal” tax rate for the rich being between 45 and 70 per cent.
Emmanuel Farhi, 33, is a Harvard-based, French-born macroeconomist. In a recent paper, Farhi looks at the eurozone and at whether countries can devalue internally – that is, without having to leave the currency union. His finding that, under certain circumstances, changes in the tax system can replicate the effects of an exchange rate devaluation will no doubt play into the current debate on the single currency.
Raj Chetty, 32, is one of the youngest-ever tenured professors at Harvard’s economics department. He is best-known for going against the conventional theory that unemployment benefits reduce the incentive to look for work. Chetty’s research shows benefits can be helpful as they prevent people from rushing to take an unsuitable job.
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