Utopia, you are standing in it!

Robert Kaplan in Foreign Policy:

“It is realism in the service of the national interest — whose goal is the avoidance of war — that has saved lives over the span of history far more than humanitarian interventionism.”

I’m not exactly sure his comment about the goal of the national interest (or the goal of realism) makes any sense, but Kaplan’s larger point about realism vs. idealism is interesting and almost certainly true in the American context.  I’m curious how Sven would respond.

At The American Conservative, Daniel Larison has written a long, comprehensive description and defense of a principled non-interventionist foreign policy that manages to avoid the extremes of isolationism while retaining its coherence. How well does it succeed?

First, a general principle:

When a conflict or dispute erupts somewhere, unless it directly threatens the security of America or our treaty allies, the assumption should be that it is not the business of the U.S. government to take a leading role in resolving it. If a government requests aid in the event of a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis (e.g., famine, disease), as Haiti did following its devastating earthquake in 2010, the U.S. can and should lend assistance—but as a general rule the U.S. should not seek to interfere in other nations’ domestic circumstances.

That sounds right. The rub is how broadly we construe “directly threatens the security of American or…

Marc earlier noted the depressing state of political literacy in the US.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to see a remarkable statement of economic literacy in the news today – and by someone who isn’t a trade economist.  In this case, the example came from entrepreneur Elon Musk (who was seconded by fellow businessman Lyndon Rive). He, unlike most Americans, seems to totally get one of the reasons why protectionism designed to offset foreign “external” subsidies (subsidies allegedly aimed at helping domestic – in this case Chinese – companies compete in a foreign market) is unwise:

When asked whether or not the U.S. should erect trade barriers designed to protect American solar-panel manufacturers, Mr. Musk said: “If the Chinese government wants to subsidize the rollout of solar power in America, OK, it is kind of like ‘thank you’ is what we should be saying.”

Now I’m not sure the…

When people discuss affirmative action, they often have a mistaken view that higher education is filled with legions of under-qualified minorities. From the inside, we have the opposite view. The higher up you go, the less likely you will find folks from under-represented groups. So, what gives?

In addition to plain ideological differences, I think people are selectively looking at the academic pipeline. Basically, at some points in the career, affirmative action is indeed at work and some folks, including myself no doubt, will receive extra consideration. But most of the time, privilege is the rule. People will disproportionately focus on the parts of the pipeline where affirmative action is a modest benefit for some people.

To grasp the argument, it helps to break down what needs to happen in order for anyone to become a tenured professor:

1. Getting a high college GPA.
2. Applying to the “right” grad schools.
3. Admission…

In my Sept. 20 column in The Japan Times, I fielded a good question: why the heck are Japanese always asking your blood type? For the full explanation, read the column but the short answer is they want to know more about you; many Japanese believe you can tell someone’s personality by their blood type.

To whit, this depiction of the personality types:

(translation,  from right to left; I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.)

Type A: What the f***? Don’t go putting lemon on everyone’s fried chicken!!

Type B: But it tastes better with lemon!

Type O: I’m fine either way.

Type B: Parsley is soooo delicious!

Fabio

I was giving a talk about my research on the politics of the anti-war movement at the GMU econ department’s public choice seminar. At lunch, my good friend Bryan Caplan and his colleague Ilea Rainer asked me: what are five things that economists should learn from sociology? We didn’t get through all five, but here are three that came up:

1. Sociologists have a deep appreciation of imitation and conformity as a basic feature of human behavior. Economists rarely model this explicitly. If it is so important, as sociologists have shown, then economists are really missing the boat.
2. Social networks/social structure matters. Simple idea but few economists sit around and model the effects of social structure. Usually the best you get is a recognition that “norms” matter. My argument is that economists should care because social structures produce opportunities (e.g., you hear about jobs through networks). Most models assume…

| Peter Klein |

O&M generally takes a dim view of Keynesian economics. And yet Keynesianism triumphed after WWII and, while mostly dormant among academics from the 1970s to the 2000s, made a sweeping comeback over the last 2-3 years. If we anti-Keynesians are so smart, why is Keynesianism so popular?

This is an important question for the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, and we’ve addressed it before. Keynesianism appeals to fine-tuners, is easily formalized, appeared to “work” during and after WWII, has a “progressive” and “scientific” veneer, and justifies policies that governments have long championed (but all serious economists opposed).

Matthew Luzzetti and Lee Ohanian propose a similar narrative in their new NBER paper, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money After 75 Years: The Importance of Being in the Right Place at the Right Time.” In a nutshell, Keynesianism told people what they…

by Mario Rizzo  

The current issue of The Economisthas a very interesting article on the turmoil among macroeconomists (“The Other-Wordly Philosophers”). Essentially, the article argues that although the dominant macro model, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium theory [DSGE], appears to be in a state of near-total breakdown, there is no agreement among economists as to what should replace it.

“Would economists be better off starting from somewhere else? Some think so. They draw inspiration from neglected prophets, like Minsky, who recognised that the “real” economy was inseparable from the financial. Such prophets were neglected not for what they said, but for the way they said it. Today’s economists tend to be open-minded about content, but doctrinaire about form. They are more wedded to their techniques than to their theories. They will believe something when they can model it.”