Wanted: More Scarlett Johanssons

Conn Carroll / February 06, 2009

Cato Institute fellow Will Wilkinson wrote earlier this week:

I am slowly reaching the conclusion that the current debate over fiscal stimulus — like prior debates over monetary stimulus, and the causes of the financial crisis — has exposed the cluelessness of (many? most?) professional economists and ought to be considered an embarrassment to the profession.

In the debate over economic stimulus, I hear many otherwise brilliant people making a lot of baseless conjectures about mass psychology — about consumer and creditor “fear” and “uncertainty,” and what to do about it. But, as far as I can tell, none of them has even a rudimentary theory about the causes of micro-fear or how it scales up to aggregate consumer demand or aggregrate credit supply, etc. (more…)