Friedman, Greenspan and Summers for me. Not necessarily the nuttiest but
the most influential.
Sam
PS Why wasn't Sacks included? Maybe he's now a recovering neoliberal but
for market madness inflicted on Russia and elsehwere in the 90s he surely
earned his place in the roster?
On 3 February 2010 18:04, Wells, Julian <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Further to Ian Bruff's post about the Ignoble Prizes for Economics, I'm
> supporting the attached call to mobilise votes for Richard Portes, for the
> reasons given in Alan Freeman's message to our colleagues in the Association
> for Heterodox Economics (AHE).
>
> Note that one can vote for three candidates, so voting for Portes does not
> preclude one from also pinning responsibility on other (dis)favoured
> candidates.
>
> I'd be interested to hear list members' arguments for other candidates.
>
> For myself, I strongly believe that one cannot overlook the Black-(Sc)holes
> formula for crushing wealth into an indefinitely small value, but I am
> hovering between also recognising Milton Friedman (for his phenomenally
> silly contribution to philosophy of science) and Robert Lucas, for providing
> (in the form of rational expectations theory) a phenomenally silly practical
> application of Friedman's idea.
>
> Julian Wells
>
>
> Dr Julian Wells
>
> staff web-page: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/staff/cv.php?staffnum=287
> personal web-site: http://staffnet.kingston.ac.uk/~ku32530
>
> Senior lecturer in economics
> School of Economics
> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> Kingston University
> Penrhyn Road
> Kingston-upon-Thames
> KT1 2EE
> United Kingdom
>
> +44 (0)20 8417 2124
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Freeman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 02 February 2010 16:50
>
> Subject: Why I am calling for a vote for Richard Portes in the Real World
> Economic Review's Ignoble Economics Prize contest
>
> I personally will vote for Richard Portes; of course, list members are
> free to vote as they will (and others on this list may have their own
> reccomendations). However, I think it would be particularly appropriate,
> from the AHE's point of view, for the prize to be awarded to the
> best-known representative of the Royal Economic Society and I am taking
> the unusual step of urging AHE members to cast their first vote for him.
>
> This is not a personal matter: it is an institutional one. The AHE was
> actually formed because of the RES, under Portes' Secretary-Generalship,
> persistently turned down heterodox papers for its annual conference, and
> refused the reasoned request of our founders for heterodox economists to
> be involved as such in selecting papers which, they rightly argued, were
> not within the sphere of competence or expertise of mainstream
> economists to pass judgement on.
>
> Richard Portes, in his recent valedictory speech, articulated the
> truculent resistance both heterodoxy and pluralism that the RES has
> maintained ever since. A number of protesting letters from our members
> were actually published in the RES bulletin, to its credit, which may be
> consulted. We dissected the errors in Portes' reasoning in our article
> for the IREE special issue on pluralism in Higher Education (which can
> be found at http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree/v8n2/freeman.pdf).
>
> The RES persists in its obdurate opposition to all things heterodox and
> pluralist and this should, I think, be reflected in the outcome of the
> prize. Arising from the IREE special edition and our submissions on the
> UK economics subject benchmark (SBSE), we proposed a panel at the
> forthcoming RES conference on pluralism in economics education and the
> subject benchmark - an issue one might have thought of interest to
> economics, not to mention the public. This was even supported formally
> by CHUDE, the representative body of economics teaching in the UK, which
> is formally responsible for the subject benchmark.
>
> The RES turned down this proposal, a decision which I find absolutely
> extraordinary. It appears like the Bourbons to forget nothing and learn
> nothing.
>
> Portes' record has something to teach it. Those who wish to follow the
> Icelandic episode to which the Real World Review refers should read the
> excellent article in Challenge by Robert Wade. I cannot think of any
> episode in the present crisis more damning to the reputation of our
> profession. It is an extraordinary thing that any person, let alone a
> person who by virtue of his status and office is an acknowledged
> representative of the economics profession, should produce a report
> exonerating the financial system of a country which went bankrupt within
> months of his judgement, and follow this up by writing letters to the
> Financial Times impugning the reputation of a colleague with the
> temerity to question his judgement.
>
> I have said that this is an institutional matter. I urge a vote for
> Richard Portes in this poll not simply because I believe this conduct
> reflects great discredit on economics, but because the Royal Economic
> Society, the principal body reflecting the professional opinion of
> economists in the UK, with great authority in the world, does not
> deserve this authority and does not deserve to represent us. It has been
> questioned even by the sovereign from whom it claims patronage. If the
> RES wishes to maintain its claim to represent standards in economics, it
> must earn it. A vote for Richard Portes will send to the Royal Economic
> Society the signal that we, the economists it claims to speak on behalf
> of, think it is time for it to clean up its act.
>
> Alan Freeman
>
>
>
> On 02/02/2010 6:07 AM, Wells, Julian wrote:
> > Details of this initiative are available here:
> >
> >
> http://rwer.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/announcing-the-ignoble-and-noble-prizes-for-economics-2/
> >
> > A sidebar at the right of the page (and other related pages) provides
> access to the voting mechanism and to the evidence pages for the nominees.
> >
> > Discussion of the nominations is here:
> >
> >
> http://rwer.wordpress.com/nominations-for-the-ignoble-prize-for-economics/
> >
> >
> > Now here is the shortlist (from
> http://rwer.wordpress.com/short-list-dossiers/):
> >
> >
> > Fischer Black and Myron Scholes
> >
> > They jointly developed the Black-Scholes model which led to the explosive
> growth of financial derivatives. The importance given to their hypothetical
> calculation of derivative prices was baneful not just because it was bogus,
> but also because it meant that relevant and often urgent real-world economic
> research was widely neglected by the profession.
> >
> >
> > Eugene Fama
> >
> > His "efficient market theory" provided the moral umbrella for all sorts
> of greed, predatory behaviour and incompetent corporate management. It also
> provided the rationale for deregulation. And his theory's widespread
> acceptance meant that "discussion of investor irrationality, of bubbles, of
> destructive speculation had virtually disappeared from academic discourse."
> In these three ways Fama's work created the environment which made possible
> the GFC.
> >
> >
> > Milton Friedman
> >
> > He propagated the delusion, through his misunderstanding of the
> scientific method, that an economy can be accurately modeled using
> counterfactual propositions about its nature. This, together with his
> simplistic model of money, encouraged the development of the financial
> theories with unrealistic assumptions that facilitated the GFC. In short,
> he opened the door for everyone subsequently to theorize without fear of
> having to be attached to reality.
> >
> >
> > Alan Greenspan
> >
> > As Chairman of the Federal Reserve System from 1987 to 2006, he both led
> the over expansion of money and credit that created the bubble that burst
> and aggressively promoted the view that financial markets are naturally
> efficient and in no need of regulation. Before a Congressional committee on
> 28 October 2008 Greenspan confessed that his theoretical beliefs of 40 years
> were now proven to be without foundation, hence his total confusion and
> failure at his job.
> >
> >
> > Assar Lindbeck
> >
> > By working to make the Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences ("Nobel Prize
> in Economics") almost exclusively a prize for neoclassical economists, this
> Swedish economist has contributed significantly to the conversion of the
> economics profession and of world public opinion to market fundamentalism.
> >
> >
> > Robert Lucas
> >
> > His development of the rational expectations hypothesis, which defined
> rationality as the capacity to accurately predict the future, both served to
> maintain Friedman's proposition that monetary factors do not affect the real
> economy and, in the name of "rigor", distanced economics even further from
> reality than Friedman had thought possible.
> >
> >
> > Richard Portes
> >
> > As Secretary-General of the Royal Economic Society from 1992-2008, he
> helped suppress worries expressed by non-mainstream economists about
> developments in the financial sector. In 2007 he wrote a Report for the
> Icelandic Chamber of Commerce giving a clean bill of health to Icelandic
> banks only a few months before they collapsed. When investigators called
> attention to the real state of Icelandic banking, he wrote a series of
> letters to the Financial Times defending the soundness of Icelandic banks
> and imputing professional incompetence to those who doubted it.
> >
> >
> > Edward Prescott and Finn Kydland
> >
> > For jointly developing and popularizing "Real Business Cycle" theory,
> which by omitting the role of credit greatly diminished the economics
> profession's understanding of dynamic macroeconomic processes.
> >
> >
> > Paul Samuelson
> >
> > Through his textbook Economics: An Introductory Analysis (19 English
> language editions and translated into 40 languages), he popularized
> neoclassical economics, contributing more than any other economist to its
> diffusion and thereby to the deregulation of financial markets which made
> possible the GFC.
> >
> >
> > Larry Summers
> >
> > As US Secretary of the Treasury (formerly an economist at Harvard and the
> World Bank), he worked successfully for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall
> Act, which since the Great Crash of 1929 had kept deposit banking separate
> from casino banking. He also worked with Greenspan and Wall Street
> interests to torpedo efforts to regulate derivatives.
> >
> > ++++++++++++++
>
>
>
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