Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself.
So says the Economist in its exploration of what went wrong with the dismal science and its practitioners, whose pronouncements - in the wake of the ongoing economic crisis - “are viewed with more scepticism than before”.
Time was when the word of Greenspan was Gospel; now, even Paul Krugman is arguing that over much of the past 30 years, macroeconomics was “spectacularly useless at best, and positively harmful at worst.”
Not surprisingly for a piece about economics and economists, the article doesn’t quite reach a conclusion, but the arguments therein are worth reading (as are the comments).
Related links:
The other-worldly philosophers - Economist
Efficiency and beyond - Economist
On the (de)merits of smalls banks in developing countries - FT Alphaville
Willem Buiter’s Maverecon blog - FT.com
