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Closing in. Roger Farmer weighs the options and their consequences.
Roger Farmer's Economic Window A Bridge Too Far? Roger Farmer | Distinguished Professor of Economics at UCLA
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Lately, it strikes me that a lot of macroeconomic policy discourse has descended into unfocused proposals of solutions in search of problems, and is totally detached from any coherent discussion of broader social policy questions.
Exactly what concrete human problems in Japan are these solutions intended to solve? This is a serious question.
What kind of future do the Japanese want to build for themselves? And how do these considerations about inflation rates and whatnot play into the answer to that question? Is the rate of per capita income growth too low? In what ways? What kinds of income do Japanese need more of, and what kinds of income do they have enough of, or too much of? Are they falling short in the public sector creation of public goods? Or the private sector creation of consumer goods?. Are their retirements secure? Are their lives too harried? And if so will changing the rate of inflation fix that? Are they lonely? Bored? Confused about the future? Is the overall rate of employment too high or too low? Or do they have enough employment, but a poor distribution of that employment?
They could be debated in legislatures, but economists should provide input based on their (supposed) expertise in thinking about economic questions: questions about choices over the allocation of resources and labor. But they don't. Contemporary economists are off in la-la-land. Most of the world's most urgent discussions are passing them by.
4 comments:
Lately, it strikes me that a lot of macroeconomic policy discourse has descended into unfocused proposals of solutions in search of problems, and is totally detached from any coherent discussion of broader social policy questions.
Exactly what concrete human problems in Japan are these solutions intended to solve? This is a serious question.
What kind of future do the Japanese want to build for themselves? And how do these considerations about inflation rates and whatnot play into the answer to that question? Is the rate of per capita income growth too low? In what ways? What kinds of income do Japanese need more of, and what kinds of income do they have enough of, or too much of? Are they falling short in the public sector creation of public goods? Or the private sector creation of consumer goods?. Are their retirements secure? Are their lives too harried? And if so will changing the rate of inflation fix that? Are they lonely? Bored? Confused about the future? Is the overall rate of employment too high or too low? Or do they have enough employment, but a poor distribution of that employment?
Dan where do those questions get debated and (hopefully) answered?
I would think that is what legislatures are for... state/local govts... etc...
(I agree they are important questions...)
No where. And that's the problem. Also "recently"??? Don't think so...
They could be debated in legislatures, but economists should provide input based on their (supposed) expertise in thinking about economic questions: questions about choices over the allocation of resources and labor. But they don't. Contemporary economists are off in la-la-land. Most of the world's most urgent discussions are passing them by.
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