Larry Summers | Random Observations for Students of Economics

Speculation about Larry

Economics Comments Off

Apr 072010

The media is abuzz with stories that Larry Summers is unhappy and may be leaving the Obama administration: click here, here, here, and here.

I have no idea if any of this speculation is true. (The only way I would know is if Larry said something to me about it, and then I wouldn’t be talking about it on my blog. But he hasn’t, so I can.) What I do know is that it would be unfortunate for the country if Larry left. I am obviously not privy to internal discussions at the White House, but I bet that, more often than not, Larry is pushing policy in a more moderate and more sensible direction.

On the other hand, a loss for the nation could be a gain for ec 10 students. Before he left for the White House, Larry was a regular and popular guest lecturer. We would be delighted to have him back.

The ERP

Economics Comments Off

Feb 112010

CEA Chair Christy Romer blogs about the new Economic Report of the President. She also provides the link to the report itself.

One of my former staff at the CEA takes note of this sentence:

This past year, the Council has been blessed with staff of a caliber not seen since the glory days of the CEA in the 1960s, when future Nobel laureates Robert Solow and Kenneth Arrow were senior economists and James Tobin was a member.

Really? I am impressed with the current CEA staff as well, but this seems a bit of an overstatement. I wonder who on the current staff is expected to win a Nobel prize.

I am proud of the staff I put together when I was CEA chair, and I am sure other CEA chairmen are as well. Yet I would venture a guess that the post-1960s peak in the caliber of the CEA came in 1982-83. I was a junior staffer then, along with University of Chicago economist John Cochrane, but put that aside. Martin Feldstein was the chair, and the senior staff included Larry Summers and Paul Krugman. That makes three winners of the John Bates Clark Award–a feat that, I suspect, has not been repeated since.

Here is a project for some ambitious blogger: Go to old ERPs, which list the CEA members and staff, and collate them with data on citations. That would provide one way to judge objectively (albeit imperfectly) the quality of CEA economists over time.

Update: Here.

How well is Team Obama working?

Economics Comments Off

Jan 062010

Al Hunt says the economic team is not working well, leading Mickey Kaus to wonder whether Larry Summers will be pushed out.

I would be very surprised if that happened. President Obama seems astute enough to recognize that Larry as an economic policy adviser is nonpareil. Larry is simply too good to give up.

On the other hand, the job Larry has–NEC Director–traditionally has the responsibility of coordinatiing the policy process, which requires more people skills than deep insights into economic policy. Maybe what the White House needs is a reorganization. Put a hard-working but easy-going person like Jason Furman or Doug Elmendorf in charge of organizing the economic policy process and then give Larry a position such as ”senior adviser” from which he can kibitz on a wide range of policy topics. There is really no one better at asking the hard questions that need to be asked.

Random Observations for Students of Economics