Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System and former Princeton professor, spoke at this year's Princeton commencement ceremony. He offered ten suggestions, or perhaps ten observations.
One of his observations was about the practical use of the study of economics. First wryly explaining that economic analysis is superb at explaining to policymakers why the choices they made in the past were wrong, it was not so useful at predicting the future. "Careful economic analysis," he explained, though, "does have one important benefit, which is
that it can help kill ideas that are completely logically inconsistent
or wildly at variance with the data. This insight covers at least 90 percent of proposed economic policies."
Economics blogger Bill McBride commented on Bernanke's comment that it "is at odds with the sequestration budget cuts, "debt ceiling" nonsense,
expansionary austerity, and more. I wish data and careful analysis
could actually kill bad ideas, but I'm not sure what Paul Ryan would do
with his life."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment