Posner, Krugman y Mankiw escriben sobre el Libro de Skidelsky y Keynes

Keynes: The Return of the Master es el título de un libro de reciente aparición escrito por Robert Skidelsky y sobre el cual se estan escribiendo diversas reseñas. Yo quiero mencionar tres en particular que me parecen muy interesantes:

1. La primera es de Krugman, (NYT) que en general podemos imaginarnos a priori su comentario positivo.

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2. La segunda es de Mankiw, Back In Demand. (WSJ) Todos sabemos de su ubicación con los Nuevos Keynesianos, aunque al defender política monetaria sobre la fiscal, en últimas fechas ha entrado en un fuerte debate con Krugman y otros. Mankiw dice

.....Most macroeconomists—that is, those who study the ups and downs of the overall economy—fall into one of two broad camps: Keynes admirers or Keynes detractors. When these groups cross paths, the result is the ivory-tower equivalent of a spitball fight.....

pero el último párrafo es interesante

....Which brings us to a third group of macroeconomists: those who fall into neither the pro- nor the anti-Keynes camp. I count myself among the ambivalent. We credit both sides with making legitimate points, yet we watch with incredulity as the combatants take their enthusiasm or detestation too far. Keynes was a creative thinker and keen observer of economic events, but he left us with more hard questions than compelling answers

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3. Finalmente la más interesante, incluso por el título es de Richard Posner, How I Became a Keynesian, en The New Republic. Conocemos su posición, por lo que vale la pena leerla, aunque es algo larga... un par de párrafos adelante...

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We have learned since September that the present generation of economists has not figured out how the economy works. The vast majority of them were blindsided by the housing bubble and the ensuing banking crisis; and misjudged the gravity of the economic downturn that resulted; and were perplexed by the inability of orthodox monetary policy administered by the Federal Reserve to prevent such a steep downturn; and could not agree on what, if anything, the government should do to halt it and put the economy on the road to recovery. By now a majority of economists are in general agreement with the Obama administration's exceedingly Keynesian strategy for digging the economy out of its deep hole....

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Although there are other heresies in The General Theory, along with puzzles, opacities, loose ends, confusions, errors, exaggerations, and anachronisms galore, they do not detract from the book's relevance to our present troubles. Economists may have forgotten The General Theory and moved on, but economics has not outgrown it, or the informal mode of argument that it exemplifies, which can illuminate nooks and crannies that are closed to mathematics. Keynes's masterpiece is many things, but "outdated" it is not. So I will let a contrite Gregory Mankiw, writing in November 2008 in The New York Times, amid a collapsing economy, have the last word: "If you were going to turn to only one economist to understand the problems facing the economy, there is little doubt that the economist would be John Maynard Keynes. Although Keynes died more than a half-century ago, his diagnosis of recessions and depressions remains the foundation of modern macroeconomics....