Bush needs economists
Daniel Altman had a piece in yesterday’s New York Times on the dearth of economists willing to work for the Bush administration: The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant ...
Daniel Altman had a piece in yesterday's New York Times on the dearth of economists willing to work for the Bush administration: The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, and the director's chair at the Congressional Budget Office, currently occupied by Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will soon be empty, too. The White House and Congress need as many as five academic economists of high caliber, and it's not obvious where they will come from. The Republican Party may be facing something of a shallow bench. "Bush's reputation in at least the academic community is about as low as you can imagine," said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the council during President Ronald Reagan's first term and is now chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group. "A lot of people would not be willing to give up a good tenured position for a position in the White House."Niskanen goes on to take quite a few shots at the administration. However, the most interesting observation came in these paragraphs: "It has been true, typically speaking, that Republican administrations have found it harder to find senior, more prominent academic economists for the C.E.A. members and chairman than have Democratic administrations," said Michael L. Mussa, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, who was a member of the council during President Reagan's second term. Mr. Mussa explained that the problem was partly one of specializations. "In the economics profession, on the microeconomic and regulatory side, there you find a substantial number of Republicans," he said, "but macroeconomists tend to lean a bit more to the Democratic side, on average." I'd be curious to hear from economists whether this last assertion is factually correct. What would be even more interesting is whether the political affiliation precedes the academic specialization or vice versa. One would expect macroeconomists, for example, to be more skeptical of markets -- in their bailiwick, unemployment is a persistent phenomenon, suggesting that markets do not always clear. Microeconomists, on the other hand, are more intimately familiar with the perverse effects of government intervention in markets. So, does the political ideology redetermine the subfield, or does the subfield alter one's ideology?
Daniel Altman had a piece in yesterday’s New York Times on the dearth of economists willing to work for the Bush administration:
The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, and the director’s chair at the Congressional Budget Office, currently occupied by Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will soon be empty, too. The White House and Congress need as many as five academic economists of high caliber, and it’s not obvious where they will come from. The Republican Party may be facing something of a shallow bench. “Bush’s reputation in at least the academic community is about as low as you can imagine,” said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the council during President Ronald Reagan’s first term and is now chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group. “A lot of people would not be willing to give up a good tenured position for a position in the White House.”
Niskanen goes on to take quite a few shots at the administration. However, the most interesting observation came in these paragraphs:
“It has been true, typically speaking, that Republican administrations have found it harder to find senior, more prominent academic economists for the C.E.A. members and chairman than have Democratic administrations,” said Michael L. Mussa, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, who was a member of the council during President Reagan’s second term. Mr. Mussa explained that the problem was partly one of specializations. “In the economics profession, on the microeconomic and regulatory side, there you find a substantial number of Republicans,” he said, “but macroeconomists tend to lean a bit more to the Democratic side, on average.”
I’d be curious to hear from economists whether this last assertion is factually correct. What would be even more interesting is whether the political affiliation precedes the academic specialization or vice versa. One would expect macroeconomists, for example, to be more skeptical of markets — in their bailiwick, unemployment is a persistent phenomenon, suggesting that markets do not always clear. Microeconomists, on the other hand, are more intimately familiar with the perverse effects of government intervention in markets. So, does the political ideology redetermine the subfield, or does the subfield alter one’s ideology?
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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