Conversations with Tyler: Krugman, Cowen, and Getting Along

You should listen to Conversations with Tyler, featuring economist Tyler Cowen of The Mercatus Center at George Mason University interviewing a wide range of people. Yes, he interviews economists, but he also interviews business leaders, celebrities, and people he finds interesting but who are not well-known outside academic communities.

Cowen’s interview with Paul Krugman reminds us that economists from across the political spectrum generally agree more than the public realize. Politicians would rather highlight the disagreements, which are often matters of degree more than binary approaches to problems.

Listening to Krugman, I still disagree with some of his positions, but his academic work has been outstanding. He recognizes that conservatives and libertarians have some economically valid points, because data are data. New York, for example, is a prime example of rent control and zoning limits increasing inequality and causing housing shortages. Krugman admits he also isn’t as confident as he was about some past policy pronouncements. I respect “We don’t know” as a great answer from an economist — and one we should hear more often.

Of course, I’m not an academic economist; my views are shaped by reading economists as a rhetorician interested in economics. As I tell my students, I understand much of the math, some models, and read voraciously. I study how economists communicate, using some of the same methods they use to study other groups.

I am not qualified to model global trade policy, which is the field in which Krugman made his reputation. I understand micro / [wiki]behavioral economics[/wiki] far better than I understand macro and its dizzying complexities with hundreds of variables. (Trust me, the [wiki]GDP[/wiki] and [wiki]CPI[/wiki] mathematics are book-length models. The math isn’t “complex” but the resulting models are.)

All the above caveats stated, I find Krugman ventures outside his specialty with too much confidence. He’s a political commentator for the New York Times, not a pure economist trying to explain complex theories. He’s in a different role as a writer than as an academic researcher. In that respect, he’s another citizen expressing opinions.

That Cowen and Krugman can and do have important conversations reminds us that such civility and professionalism is too often absent from policy discourse. Yet, I know in print Krugman slips into a more partisan tone. I realize Krugman isn’t going to admit his tone towards the moderate Republicans might have contributed to the rise of Donald Trump. Krugman might not recognize how his language was part of the hyper-partisanship problem.

Listen to Conversations with Tyler and learn how people with a variety of perspectives can have serious, polite, informative discussions.