Thursday, September 12, 2013

New York Times on Wynne Godley

The New York Times has an interesting article about Wynne Godley and his predictions of the global economic crisis of 2008:
Jonathan Schlefer, “Embracing Wynne Godley, an Economist Who Modeled the Crisis,” New York Times, September 10, 2013.
Missing from the article is the plain fact that Wynne Godley was essentially working in the non-neoclassical, Post Keynesian tradition.

3 comments:

  1. Against that, it should be said that Wynne Godley has being predicting gloom and doom for decades. About 30 years ago, as I remember, he was forecasting national bankruptcy for the UK, and mass emigration from the UK.

    But I’m not qualified to pass final judgement on him.

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    1. Ralph, neither am i qualified to put the overall judgement of his work,but i think it´s not really correct to put him among the "doom and gloom folks". Wynne Godley,was as i understand it, one of those nowadays quite exceptional public servants, of the old school with great integrety and unselfish honesty.The "doom and gloom" had more to with his work at the Treasury, where he for many years worked on macroeconomic policy and short-term economic forecasting, bridging the gap between technical economics and actual policy.His job was simply to warn for outcomes that take in to account also a possible worst outcome.His unique instinct in this area made him very praised among others.Of course he was not always right,but after what i heard he never took any credit for his many correct predictions,it seem to be a very modest and humble man.

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    2. "has being predicting gloom and doom for decades"

      these are qualified predictions not like saying the markets will tank tomorrow morning every day.

      "About 30 years ago, as I remember, he was forecasting national bankruptcy for the UK, and mass emigration from the UK."

      Please can we have some reference?

      He had predicted unemployment would hit three million which it did!

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