Scott Sumner — Piketty on Kuznets

Piketty's defenders might correctly respond that he doesn't actually misquote Kuznets. But that's much too low a standard for responsible scholarship. When discussing someone else's work it's essential that you correctly convey their views to the reader, who rarely has time to track down all the original sources. This is the first time I've tried to do that with Piketty; let's hope it's an aberration. However I certainly would not accept his interpretation of other writings without some form of corroboration.

Kudos to Scott Sumner for digging into the documentation and apparently finding an error. As he points out, no big deal, but it is not good scholarship.

The contention that Piketty misinterprets Kuznets is more germane. This sort of criticism is the substance of debate in many fields, certainly in my field, philosophy, where a great deal of argument is over interpretation.

These are not hugely important points that affect the substance of Piketty's work, but rather reflections on his scholarship and cognitive bias. As Sumner points out, inattention to detail does create a poor environment for trust. Hopefully, this is an aberration. However, given reports of some spreadsheet errors, this kind of criticism can add up and certainly opponents of Piketty's views* will take advantage of that.

* Sumner: "When reading the Piketty book, I immediately noticed that he looked at things from a left-wing perspective."

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Piketty on Kuznets
Scott Sumner | Professor of Economics, Bentley University