Celebrity economists

McWilliams is bad enough without scientific evidence that he is infinite!!

I think a better scale is achieved if we use the square root of the denominator. It slightly changes the order in the bottom half of the table. I am working on a rationale as to why it should be the the square root.

Also is it possible to benchmark some leading international economic celebs?

poor old Philip Lane!

Needs to work on those media skills – perhaps a stint on big brother or, better yet, start dating a model or a celebrity – maybe Jordan?

I am disappointed not to see my name on that list.

@seafoid

Richard Tol couldn’t resist putting his own name on the shortlist.

I think it is fair enough that Mr Tol includes his own name (any economist who ends up on TV is fair game) but it would be interesting to present the table with the citations and Google News references split into before and after the Lehmans incident that signalled the start of the current crisis of capitalism to see whose currency is increasing and whose seems to be loosing value.

Why you could even add another column for the number of times economists mentioned “property bubble”, “insufficient regulation” or “excessive risk” before the crash to see which pundits had their eye on the ball. The fun you can have is simply endless.

However you would need a lexis/nexis account to do date restricted searches, that is not Google News’s job (yet)

Is anyone so blessed?

@Richard Tol

Could you redo the table? Its fairly messed up on my computer.

What is the point of this post?

Is it hinting that the “real” economists are not guilty of headline grabing predictions or doom and gloom and that we shouldn’t listen to the pseudo-economists that on TV and in the mainstream press?

I would like to see the names of some others added to this list, specifically Colm McCarthy and Martin Wolf. I’m guessing the credibility of these guys is less in doubt than McWilliams or Gurdgiev.

@Gavin Kostick

Google is a tricky beast, a substantial proportion of the Internet’s contributors are very far along the autistic/libertarian scale and the results tend to be skewed in that way.

This is clearly demonstrated by J K Galbraiths “crazy person” quotient being 4.5x Fred Hayek’s.

Garrote Fitz wants to strangle all dissenters with an iron collar:)

The 49 academics who questioned the Nama strategy should be on the list too. He’s worried the banks who treated his own loans favourably some years ago might not hack the criticism. And where would the sherryfitzers family businesses be without Nama; or the banks without Dukes to hold them all together:)

Glad I’m not on that list:)

Surely you should control for the numer of newspaper columns/blog posts they publish? Being a celebrity should be more having others talk about /quote you than talking yourself

@Eoin Bond

By that logic, Hal Varian is not an economist

“He also said that inequality may have helped cause the financial crisis. “Inequality might have been one of the ‘silent’ causes of the crisis. On the eve of the crisis, inequality in the United States was back to its pre-Great Depression levels. Like the Great Depression before it, the Great Recession was preceded by an increase in the income share of the rich and a growing financial sector. In these circumstances, borrowing could have acted as a safety valve for ordinary people to increase living standards – but on borrowed time. Over the longer term, sustainable growth is associated with a more equal income distribution.””

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/apr/05/world-economy-faces-black-swans-imf-strauss-kahn

Why is there absolutely no discussion of inequality (by the posters as opposed to the commenters) on this blog? Inequality is an efficiency issue as much as anything else and it should be addressed seriously. Have we truly become just a debt collection agency as one “celebrity” economist put it?

I think it’s terrific that academic economists have broken into the actual public discourse rather than a 10 second quote to camera (usually a private sector economist) on Six One News as would have been the case up to what, 2008? 2009 even?

I was appalled by the piece because it does not name names. There are economists like McWilliams who courted celebrity and then there are others like Morgan Kelly who became one by (a) producing a shocking prediction and (b) being right about it. At the rate we should tell Fitzer “shut up you corrupt git” for no other reason than he shares the same former job description as Charles Haughey.

@ Gavin Kostick

Excellent stuff 😀

What journal (with presumably low twat rating) are you planning for publication?

@ seafóid

Has anyone ever done a study on academics who excessively reference themselves in their own work? Now, there’s a table I’d like to see.

@ gavin kostick

Gurdgiev also appears as ‘gurdiev’ in a number of places, also as IIRC ‘constantin’ (source: what I suspect was Mr. Putin’s biggest fan Googling himself under these alternate spellings some years ago, which showed up in hit stats after I mentioned him on my own blog)

@ Mark Dowling

Garret (in his eighties?) shows clear signs of what John Quiggin calls “emeritus disease”, i.e. someone clearly in the throes of declining mental powers. As such, his utterances are sometimes embarrassing these days – for everyone but those using him.

John TheOptimist is down the pub gettin seriously lashed at being cut by Dickeen Tol. Philip Lane and Jordan are trying their best to cheer him up but he is having none of it … this could result in a serious restructuring of the blog’s content, and at a minimum a triple notch downgrade of the vichy_bank/sovereign rating by Fitch, S&P, & The Moody Blues.

Come on Richard – have a heart!

Fitch nudges Ireland up a notch …..

@ JtO

Gurgiev would prescribe for his students:

Adam Smith, the School of Salamanca, the Austrian School, Milton Friedman.

One hopes that the actual economics courses in TCD are a little broader…

And of course, JtO and EWI , he doesnt teach in the econ dept…

@Brian Lucey

When was the last time you posted a leading post on this blog? Is there a reason – or have you given up on political economy?

Pluto forbid – you might be reading Ayn Rand under the desk (-;

@David
I have never posted a leading post : I dont recall ever getting such permissions/priviliges…Perhaps I did but ITIR not.
As for political economy? No, just troll infested hurling on the ditch anon attack places. All economics is political economy. But in a place where people cheer on the beggaring of future generations to pervert capitalism I do think their politics aint ones I want to be near for fear of contamination.
I read AR years ago, meh. Adrian Goldsworthy my main man at present.

It is clear that ‘Irish economy blog’ has become a premier forum for knowledge, clarification, analysis and debate on the Irish economy, BUT not for ‘Hello Magazine Style’ posts as this one on celebrity economists.

Frankly, no one cares who is a celebrity economist or not. Yes we are acquainted with the noteworthy ‘regulars’ in the media but we are simply interested that their comments make sense, and more importantly that they can offer workable solutions for this small nation.

Action plans are what we need not words nor tables… So I guess back to the work Prof. Tol 🙂

@Richard Tol

I don’t find your post in the least bit amusing.
Garret Fitzgerald made his point rather harshly. Clearly he does not believe in the analysis presented by some economists. yet he has stood head and shoulders above most of the politicians, economists and statisticians in this country for decades. For you to attempt to make a joke of what is a serious point in an extremely serious situation is very distasteful.

If most economists had accepted Garrte Fitzgerald weekly analysis of the loss of competitiveness in the economy since 2002, we would not be where we are now. Time for you to take on somebody your own age.

So you can take you celebrity pole bandwagon and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

I’m just happy to have five citations!

@ Gavin Kostic April 5th, 2011 at 5:13 pm

🙂

I was going to say that David McWilliams was notable once again for his singular contributions, but then I remembered that you forgot someone in your list.

D. McWilliams 1188 0 inf
G. FitzGerald 105 0 inf

Although the true number of articles mentioning Fitzgerald must surely be higher. Anyway, in order to compare the two, you would need to introduce transfinite numbers or some other metric.

Either way, I think the crow has called the raven black here.

I thought Garret Fitzgerald raised an issue that was worthy of debate when he criticised what he referred to as ‘celebrity economists’.

Risk can be seen as inherently subjective. It does not exist “out there,” independent of our minds and cultures, waiting to be measured. Instead, risk can be seen as a concept that human beings have invented to help them understand and cope with the dangers and uncertainties of life. Although these uncertainties are real, there is no such thing as “real risk” or “objective risk.”

Gerd Gigerenzer of Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin studied the effect of the 9/11 event on the travel behaviour of Americans and by analysing data from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the 3 months following September 11. The analysis suggests that the number of Americans who lost their lives on the road by avoiding the risk of flying was higher than the total number of passengers killed on the four fatal flights. His analysis suggested that (a) Americans reduced their air travel as a consequence of September 11 and (b) a proportion of those who reduced their flying instead drove (as opposed to staying home or taking a train), then (c) an increase in traffic fatalities resulted.
http://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/volltexte/institut/dok/full/gg/dreadris/dreadris.pdf

Based on this research Garret’s hypothesis is worth considering. The publicity given to the more populist opinions of some celebrity economists, particularly around November 2010, may have resulted in behaviours among the public that, for instance, caused depositors (individual and corporate) to remove deposits from the Irish banks – thereby exacerbating the banks problems. This is not an unreasonable hypothesis and is worthy of debate.

In all seriousness, I’m surprised we’ve got this far into the discussion without mentioning the bleedin’ obvious: brilliant communicators and brilliant researchers are not the same thing.

Suppose all of the above had exactly the same outlook on the Irish economy. Then the list would be of little value apart from a measure of who spends most of their time communicating the group’s point of view versus researching that point of view and there would be no inferences about “economist quality” from the index.

Both communicators and researchers can have an excellent/terrible understanding of the economic crisis. Who wants and is going to get more airtime?

!

@Ronan L

brilliant communicators and brilliant researchers are not the same thing.

JTO:

This is true. But, there is also the important matter of what message the ‘brilliant communicators’ are trying to push, and how that fits in with media requirements. You yourself are a very good example. You are a brilliant researcher. But, with the greatest possible respect, I don’t think that you would claim to be a celebrity.
So, why is this? I certainly don’t accept that it is because you are a less good communicator than the ‘celebrity economists’. I think it is because your research is very fact-based, and you are not constantly trying to push a message that is in tune with what the media are trying to push.

For decades, the Irish media has demonised Fianna Fail, for a variety of historical and cultural reasons. During the years of high economic growth up to 2007, when there was no economic outlet for their demonisation, the demonisation focused mainly on the health service. We were told ad nauseum that Fianna Fail/PDs had destroyed the health service and reduced it to third world status. The words ‘health crisis’ appeared almost daily in the Irish media between 1997 and 2007. Mary Harney (cuturally, if not technically, a Fianna Fail politician) was vilified on a scale that no other Irish politician has ever experienced. It is only now, when the figures for that period are being studied and analysed (eg recent ESRI report), that it is seen that, between 1997 and 2010, Ireland actually experienced one of the largest falls in mortality rates and one of the largest rises in life expectancy that any developed country has ever experienced.

Come 2007, and the ‘health crisis’ gave way to the ‘economic crisis’. Since then, in pursuance of their campaign of demonisation of Fianna Fail, the line that the media wanted to push was not just that, after 21 years of record growth (almost all of it under Fianna Fail governnments), Ireland was experiencing a severe recession that would lop off about one-twentieth of the growth that had occurred since 1986, but that (a) the growth never existed in the first place and was simply a fraud based on property speculation and (b) the economy wasn’t just in a temporary recession, from which it would recover and grow again, as from 1986 on, but was totally and utterly destroyed. The reason the ‘celebrity economists’ are ‘celebrities’ is because they push this line, are therefore in high demand from the media. There are no ‘celebrity economists’ in Ireland taking an opposing point of view because, by taking an opposing point of view, they cease to be in demand from the media in this country and threfore can not become ‘celebrities’.

As I said, you yourself are a good example. A few weeks ago you published a brilliant piece of research on your website, showing that both house prices and residential rents in Ireland are currently virtually the lowest by far of any EU country, directly contradicting the claims of McWilliams, Kelly and Gurgdiev. How much publicity did it get? Was it covered in the media? Did you have any radio or tv interviews resulting from it? I certainly saw none. And the reason is quite simple: the facts highted in your research did not fit in with the line that the media wish to push.

@ Gerry Fahy

I am sure ‘post-event’ research (consequences and responses) is valid enough.

But it is ‘post event’.

Do you think if the FBI had intelligence ANALYSIS, three months prior to an event, to the effect that there was a strong possibility of a 9/11 event taking place, they should not warn the public to be vigilant, to save the lives of people opting to travel by road (increased road deaths) opting to avoid a percieved risk of dying on an aeroplane on their individual part?

Now it has come to pass that a lot of these guys were correct, the bank were/are full of short term charletans cheered on by foolish small shareholders for a pittance of a dividend and developers with phyallic dysfunctionality syndrome (Big house, big car, small ……) taking all the cash they could shovel at them – so where does that leave us?

Rhetorical of course.

@ Ordinary man

Do you think if the FBI had intelligence ANALYSIS, three months prior to an event, to the effect that there was a strong possibility of a 9/11 event taking place, they should not warn the public to be vigilant, to save the lives of people opting to travel by road (increased road deaths) opting to avoid a percieved risk of dying on an aeroplane on their individual part?

There was such intelligence, and the Shrub wasn’t interested (not least, I suspect, because the man who delivered the reports was a Clinton appointee, and it wasn’t Saddam Hussein’s name as the mastermind).

@EWI

Dick Clarke did a great job – he just possessed poor communication skills?

🙂

@EWI

But he was right.

I had dinner in Dublin last month with a couple of Mid-west Americans who work for a large Hi Tech industrial company supplying government and industry – they both pointed out that 95% of budgetary spending in the US was agreed between both parties and all the ‘bitching’ (their word) was over the remaing 5% !

Now if we could get that far it would be a start, agree?

🙂

@hogan,

Are you enjoying watching if we fall for the delayed April Fools’ Day effort – or do wish to give currency to the content?

@ Jillian: Thanks. I was getting a bit worried for a while. Now, about that cup of tea … 😉

On a more serious note. Where ARE the lady econs? Once there were few lady engineers and architects, etc. I would have thought that Political Economy being a human affair, that not having a regular and significant input from the female perspective might not be such a good situation. In fact, I believe its a right bad situation.

Brian

@ Richard

I’m not quite sure I get your methodology, as I get citations for David McWilliams in both Google Scholar and Harzing’s Publish or Perish.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22David+McWilliams%22+economy&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

Now if we could get that far it would be a start, agree?

I think that’s just an anecdote by the two boys, to be honest, and not much more. Reading the sort of stuff reported on TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com doesn’t give much hope.

@EWI

That maybe correct.

But it is what they believed to be the only difference between them (1 x Dem & 1 x Rep).

Principle and idealism then enter the arguement and the fight begins re. previous.

@Paul Hunt
From the author (Yves Smith):
“This is a satirical presentation of a serious theory. That’s why we didn’t run this on April 1.”

@ RT: Thanks very much for that listing. Restores my faith – somewhat. Need to observe lot greater public participation.

BpW

@Jesper

Have a look at http://fora.tv/2007/01/26/Why_Foxes_Are_Better_Forecasters_Than_Hedgehogs. Philip Tetlock describes the methodology he used when looking at expert judgment in the political/economic world. Dan Gardner’s book is based on Tetlock’s research. The methodology Tetlock used is contained in 2 appendices (pages 238 -311 !) in his book ‘Expert Political Judgment@ and is much more complex that Richard’s methodology.

An economist who appears often on radio/TV or writes in the press can be what Tetlock categories as either a ‘hedghog’or ‘fox’ pundit. So celebrity status isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The question then becomes ‘can Richard’s celebrity economists be sub divided into hedgehogs and foxes?’. If so then economists would be making real progess towards helping Garret to ‘out’ the celebrity ‘hedgehog’ economists.