Re: Krugman on Gould, et al.

Mark Crosby (crosby_m@rocketmail.com)
Thu, 4 Mar 1999 13:18:22 -0800 (PST)

---Robin Hanson <hanson@econ.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> >> >Paul Krugman is a very good economist.
> > [CUT - citations that Krugman criticized Hayek
without being familiar with Hayek's work..]
> Academics are in general terrible at the history of
> academia, and Krugman is no exception. Academics
> are expected to have opinions on the history of their
> field, but most have neither the time nor inclination
> to do thorough research on the subject.

I know what you mean, but this also seems to imply that Hayek, and Austrian economic theories more generally, are now mere historical trivia. Perhaps this is because, as Robin has indicated in the past, Hayek's Problem of Knowledge, rather than being a fundamental constraint or pervasive element of systems at all levels, is slowly being overcome by "better tools", ie, models.

(Perhaps this makes current 'Austrian' economists 'zombies' in the sense that they lack the 'consciousness' of enlightened data-gathering and modeling methods -- you're likely to meet more than a few of these 'ghosts' at GMU -- anyway,
congratulations on the new position and welcome to the (l)east coast ;-) Mark



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