Other Stiglitz critics see stubbornness as a key flaw. “There are many things wrong with Stiglitz as a policy economist,” says economist Jagdish Bhagwati, also a University Professor at Columbia. “One is that he doesn’t learn from his mistakes. A New York Times story once quoted me as saying his ‘Initiative for Policy Dialogue’ should more accurately be called ‘Initiative for Policy Monologue.’ ” An even harsher judgment comes from another Columbia colleague, who spoke on condition of anonymity: “Joe’s career tragically demonstrates that if one combines legitimate credentials as a clever and creative theorist with extreme left-wing bias and a colossal ignorance of history, one can accomplish a great deal of harm in the world.”
The article includes all of the the major examples where Stiglitz went wrong that I know of, except that it omits discussing Occupy Wall Street. Stiglitz wanted to position himself as some sort of chief economist for that movement.
It is easy to look for similarities between Stiglitz and Krugman. But I see their personalities as different, in fact nearly opposite. One senses that beneath Krugman’s relentless attacks on others he has deep needs for reassurance. In contrast, Stiglitz comes across as having no inner self-doubts. In that sense, he reminds me of David Halberstam’s description of Walt Rostow as feeling unthreatened by Vietnam War critics, because Rostow was so confident that we were winning.
Relative to Krugman, Stiglitz was more prolific and important as an economic researcher. I admire a lot of Stiglitz’s work. With Krugman, there is his early work on economies of scale and trade, but not much else. He gets a lot of support for his liquidity-trap stuff, but not from me.
One may hope that, years from now, Stiglitz’s role as a public intellectual will be forgotten. But with Krugman, that is by far the most significant aspect of his career.
Both of them have pretty bad track records. Paul Kurgster predicted recession after Trump won, among many other wrong predictions, such as predicting that the sequester in 2103 would cause a recession. Stiglitz insists wealth inequality threatens the US economy, yet the economy and stock market keeps doing well in spite of rising inequality.
We need more accountability. Economists, pundits who are habitually wrong due to their ideological motives need to be called out on it.
Having once had to review a book he co-wrote, The Three Trillion Dollar War, I recall Stigitz’ work as having been incredibly schlocky. And then there is Krugman. Trying here in vain to not be utterly snarky, but if these two are the United States’s most renowned contributors to economics, what does that say about economics generally? For some reason it seems that US economists get a disproportionate share of attention. I suspect there are many very interesting economists working today elsewhere in the world but it is not easy to find them and I am sure that I miss a lot of them. My impression is that economists like Justin Yifu Lin, Hernando de Soto, Ernst Fehr, Andy Xie, Christopher Pissarides, et al don’t get the attention they would if they were working in the US, but you really have to go out of your way to learn about them and what they are doing. Curious if there are any economics blogs where such names might turn up more frequently than elsewhere? It seems like even the most really widely ranging linkers like Mark Thoma get 9 out of 10 from the US. Marginal Revolution links from time to time to really interesting stories from outside the US but those of course seem to have more to do with Tyler Cowen’s politics than anything else.
So I wonder, who are the academic economists who are to be lauded for their research. Good research, some efforts at reaching the public, perhaps humble (or at least not raving arrogant egomaniacs), leaving the world a better place?
Ted Schultz comes to mind (Theodore W. Schultz).
Sir Paul Collier?
Is Martin Feldstein on the list? Is Milton Friedman? Is Peter Bauer? Fogel and North? Amartya Sen?
Let us now praise famous economists–but which are the praise worthy ones?