When is one theory better than the other? What is progress in economics? "The Kids" asked a dozen economists in the halls of the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, and we invite you to watch what they said.
In 2008, the world avoided making the policy mistakes of the Great Depression. That's progress, says George Akerlof. Anatole Kaletsky tells us what progress is not: to introduce, in the name of rigor, ever more unrealistic assumptions in economics, however mathematically convenient these may be. And James Galbraith compares progress to pornography: it's hard to define, but you recognize it if you ever see it.
About The Kids
The History of Economics Playground began life when a small group of young historians of economics created an independent blog. INET saw the opportunity to give their thoughtful ideas a wider audience, and the History of Economics Playground is now a featured blog on ineteconomics.org.
We invited these young bloggers -- self-styled as "The Kids" -- to attend our annual conference in Bretton Woods last April, and we provided them with a video team. The Kids were playing in the halls of the Mount Washington Hotel, chasing everyone from George Akerlof to Anatole Kaletsky to Brad DeLong to James Galbraith. They produced four videos. The first clip showed a range of opinion on corruption in academia, and the next clip raises the question of what is a good model in economics.
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