Bill Black — Krugman Is Half Right

The most logical explanation for such a bubble is a rational explanation – widespread “accounting control fraud” by lenders and loan purchasers. Orthodox economists make a standard assumption of rational behavior, including by criminals. But orthodox economists have a primitive tribal taboo against the “f” word – fraud. When it comes to bubbles, therefore, orthodox economists overwhelmingly simply assume mass irrationality. They would rather drop their most cherished assumptions about economic behavior than admit the reality that there are elite white-collar criminals and that their crimes can become epidemic when the incentive structures are so perverse that they produce a criminogenic environment.

This problem of dogma is compounded by the problem that the orthodox responses to a bubble are clumsy, slow, and awful in terms of their “collateral damage” to the Nation, particularly those most in need. Basically, the orthodox response is to throw the economy in a recession – hoping to kill off the bubble and reduce the severity of the eventual recession it would have caused when it collapsed on its own. Worse, the orthodox policy recommendation to avoid future bubbles is permanent monetary austerity and higher interest rates to deter bubbles – producing rolling recessions and weak growth. Indeed, orthodox economists are so dubious of their ability to correctly identify a bubble and so cognizant of the grave harms and risks posed by trying to use orthodox responses to bubbles that their standard recommendation is to do nothing even if they suspect that a bubble is developing.

The vastly better response to a bubble like the housing bubble is unknown to orthodox economists and is never taught to students. The answer is to (1) put the fraudulent lenders and loan purchasers out of business by vigorous supervision, enforcement, and prosecution and (2) to limit their growth by effective regulation and bans on loan products most conducive to fraud. The regulators and prosecutors must break the “Gresham’s” dynamic that can make fraud epidemic.

New Economic Perspectives

Krugman Is Half Right

William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC