Quite a long essay of Paul Krugman on Milton Friedman, in the New York Review of Books. I must say I would only call "fascinating", as Greg Mankiw does (with a shadow of irony, I'd like to hope; he couldn't have read the entire article, otherwise), its first part, up to the 3rd section (part which is also well written and informative, I'd say, also for persons who did not have formal training in Economics). For the rest and put as shortly as possible: I believe Krugman is a great scholar, but I think that what impedes him (for the moment) to become even greater is his being so dismissive, despite not having sufficient arguments to backup his opinion, with regard to Neo-Classical Economics, while adhering to the Neo-Keynesian trend too zealously. There is of course some room for debate there but I believe (am I so wrong? comments invited) that most economists see the balance here in a very different way than Paul Krugman does. And that is such a pity for an economist admired by so many people (myself included)!
Update: I wrote part of the comment above too much in a hurry and, re-reading it, I don't find it quite (actually not at all...) what I wanted it to be. Obviously both the 'new classical' and the 'new Keynesian' trends had a few waves over time and there were enough differences even among those. Moreover there was of course also the 'neo classical- Keynesian synthesis' attempt and 'new neo-classical' blend (which takes some Keynesian elements as its core). One excellent recent material that discusses all this very well (and that perhaps justifies in a way- I've thought of it now- why Mankiw called Krugman's text 'fascinating') is in my opinion a recent article by Greg Mankiw in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Fall 2006 edition (you need either individual subscription or institutional access) entitled "The Macroeconomist as Scientist and Engineer". I can perfectly agree with the idea Mankiw presents there, that the real 'tension' in macroeconomics is in fact between its "scientific" and respectively its "engineering" perspectives. To some extent Krugman also tackles this 'macroeconomics engineering perspective' when criticising Friedman in the last part of the essay in the NYRB (I still do not agree at all with Friedman's characterization as 'dishonest': in fact one could say he was merely putting forward the scientific view of the macroeconomist also in his public policy advice, if one follows Mankiw's point). But you should definitely read this article by Mankiw to get a full impression of the macroeconomics development, its present status etc. I paste its abstract below:
The subfield of macroeconomics was born, not as a science, but more as a type of engineering. The problem that gave birth to our field was the Great Depression. God put macroeconomists on earth not to propose and test elegant theories but to solve practical problems. This essay offers a brief history of macroeconomics, together with an evaluation of what we have learned. My premise is that the field has evolved through the efforts of two types of macroeconomists, those who understand the field as a type of engineering and those who would like it to be more of a science. While the early macroeconomists were engineers trying to solve practical problems, the macroeconomists of the past several decades have been more interested in developing analytic tools and establishing theoretical principles. These tools and principles, however, have been slow to find their way into applications. As the field of macroeconomics has evolved, one recurrent theme has been the interaction, sometimes productive and sometimes not, between the scientists and the engineers. John Maynard Keynes (1931) famously opined, "If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid." As we look ahead, "humble" and "competent" remain ideals toward which macroeconomists can aspire.
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