Posner to Romer: Where Are Your Academic Scruples?

Judge Richard Posner wrote a piece for "The Atlantic" yesterday questioning Christina Romer, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, on her August 6th presentation to the Economic Club of Washington DC titled, "So is it Working? An Assessment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at the Five-Month Mark."

Posner challenges Romer on her answer to the group of economists as to whether the stimulus package, passed in haste in February by Congress, was in fact working. Romer answered "Absolutely." Posner finds this answer irresponsible coming from an academic and goes on to question why those who leave academia to pursue a public role don't retain their academic scruples:

I do not think her analysis is responsible, and I am concerned with the fact that academic economists, when they become either public officials or public intellectuals (like Paul Krugman), leave behind their academic scruples. (This is one of the themes of my book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [2001])--and Krugman was one of my examples of the phenomenon.

and then again here:

This raises the question of the ethical responsibility of academic economists, such as Romer (and Krugman, and Lawrence Summers, and many others), who write for the media or join the government, either to adhere to academic standards in their nonacademic work or to make clear to the public that they are on holiday from those standards and that what they say in their public-intellectual or governmental careers should not be thought identical to their academic views.

Ouch! Posner makes it clear he agreed with the stimulus, at least in theory, but found the design lacking and the delivery "lazy." He challenges on a variety of levels Romer's claim the stimulus is working. I won't rehash the whole article because it is a worthy read. I have read a number of Judge Posner's legal opinions and found them straightforward and readable even for someone without a law background like myself. His economic blog is not always as straightforward, at least to this layperson anyway. I think this piece in the Atlantic is more approachable, however.

I respect Judge Posner immensely, he gives an honest assessment and puts his political opinions to the side. I appreciated reading why the stimulus could have worked had it been designed better. I have held the opinion it would have been preferable to do the tax holiday or no stimulus. Because I believe him to give fair assessments though, I give his opinion more weight than a partisan assessment.

This leads to his larger point, Krugman, Romer, Summers and Buffet, lent their credibility to Obama during his campaign. As Obama had no governing experience, their backing gave his economic plans some weight. When these same high profile academics allow their scruples to "take a holiday" in service of a political agenda, the layman will have difficulty discerning political spin from solid academic opinion. For example, the other night Krugman wrote an opinion on the public option and its significance to the Progressives. On Americablog, Krugman's opinion was touted because it agreed with a political point of view but given great weight because of his academic pedigree:

Not that Nobel laureates aren't intrinsically smart folks, but I think this analysis of the politics of the public option is particularly insightful.

Now that the Nobel laureate finds Obama's willingness to sacrifice the "public option" to come up short, the commenters start questioning Obama's intelligence:

He was a lecturer and has no published or scholarly academic papers.

I don't know where the meme came from that he is "brilliant" and "all seeing" and "highly intelligent." It probably came from the same place as "he's playing eleventy dimensional chess" and "he's 25 steps ahead of everybody else."

I think this whole "constitutional scholar" thingy is way overrated.

What is the definition of "scholar" when it comes to Obama?

Those comments look as though I might have plucked them straight from a right wing blog. In fairness, most left and right wing blogs become echo chambers to varying degrees. Opinions that agree are "genius" while those that don't are "stupid." This can certainly contribute to political discourse that becomes frenzied. Obviously there is more at play in our heightened political discussion, not the least of which is hyperpartisan media-types who both lament and ridicule an uninformed public. Still, Posner's point is an excellent one. An academic "on scruples vacation" might fool an uninformed public but they can't get past their peers. Posner didn't need a disclaimer to weed through Romer's discussion, but it would be nice if Posner didn't need to advise the "uninformed public" Romer's academic scruples were in Cancun for spring break.
UPDATE: Brad DeLong of Grasping Reality with Both Hands defends Romer.
Judge Posner's response to Prof. DeLong

What's With the Liberal Obsession With the Public Plan?

Notorious lefty and dubious Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman miscalculated the devotion to single payer health care when he decided to take an informal poll to see how much Canadians in an audience adored their health care system. The results weren't surprising, well at least not to anyone but Krugman:




NewsBusters has the full scoop on Krugman's obsession with government run health care and it's certainly an interesting read. Were Krugman alone in this obsession, I think it would be easy to chalk this up to the ravings of an ivory tower intellect. But Krugman is far from alone. On any given day a health care item posted at Huffington Post can gather a couple thousand comments ranting on the wonders of single payer and government run health care. The same outdated polls and statistically biased studies showing US Health Care ranked 37th in the world are regurgitated ad nauseum if they were some long lost gospel truth the rest of the pagan world refuses to acknowledge. The same is true at the Daily KOS. Scott Limeux argues the entire reform all acknowledge is needed, should be scrapped without the government option included.

I recently was involved in a discussion with a few liberal friends that was almost mind boggling in the level of devotion to a government run plan. No one seems to be able to make the case why this would be better or why this is the only path to health care nirvana. Stuart M. Butler, Ph.D. writes on this obsession in a piece for the Heritage Foundation and notes that none of the 10 million federal employees are clamoring for this plan and we know that Congress has exempted itself from the same wondrous plan. Butler makes the point the underlying intention can not be that the left truly believes such a plan to be the "lean mean competing machine," the proponents claim it to be. Nor can it be the only means to cover those who don't presently qualify for Medicare but have trouble finding adequate coverage in an affordable plan.

Why would a government run Fannie or Freddie Med be any more likely to be successful than the governments ill fated attempt to compete and level the playing field in the mortgage industry? The answer really lies in the belief you will see over and over in comments on forums and in the disingenuous moralistic questioning in the advertisements, "why shouldn't everyone in America receive equal medical care? It is not about getting everyone without care adequate coverage, it is a populist rage against the "Cadillac" coverage some get while others get Medicare. Rather than pull everyone up to the best care possible, liberals would prefer to bring everyone down to equal care no matter how inadequate that might be. I for one believe we should care for the sick, it's the right thing to do. That doesn't mean we have to destroy the most advanced health care system in the world in the process.