Jared Bernstein — Piketty’s Mistakes, What They Mean for the Message of Cap21, and Other Data Thoughts

I don’t know what the right answer is…I’m working on it.  On the one hand, I’m increasingly drawn to Matt Yglesias’s point that “empirical evidence is overrated.”

On thing that is becoming pretty obvious is that economics is not a science to the degree that it is non-empirical and it is non-empirical for the very good reason that data, especially historical data and aggregates, are often unreliable "estimates" rather than actual measurements. If you can't actual count or obtain good samples, then it's mostly hand waving about speculation and rationalization.

On the Economy
Piketty’s Mistakes, What They Mean for the Message of Cap21, and Other Data Thoughts
Jared Bernstein