AN ECONOMIST LOOKS AT “THE TROUBLE WITH MACROECONOMICS”. One of the recurring themes of this blog is how my beliefs and the world’s beliefs have changed in my lifetime. One of the things I look in at is what has happened in economics since I was a graduate student some fifty years ago. Paul Romer, who has recently been named the chief economist at the World Bank, has recently taken a look at changes in the study of macroeconomics, The title of his lecture/essay is “The Trouble with Macroeconomics”. He begins by saying about macroeconomics: “I have observed more than three decades of intellectual regress.”
Romer’s essay is vigorously written and strongly felt. This article in the India Times By Andrew Mayeda and Craig Torres describes the essay as “a scathing critique that landed among Romer’s peers like a grenade.”