Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Wow, speaking of Laziness.....

Roger Farmer writing December 30th 2008 in the FT:

"In classical economics, the prices of stocks are determined by fundamentals and the fundamentals of the economy are sound. The US had the same stock of factories and machines in August that it had in July and the US workforce has not been afflicted by a sudden attack of contagious laziness."

Franco Modigliani writing in the AER, March 1977:

"Sargent (1976) has attempted to remedy this fatal flaw by hypothesizing that the persistent and large fluctuations in unemployment reflect merely corresponding swings in the natural rate itself. In other words, what happened to the United States in the 1930's was a severe attack of contagious laziness!"


Ouch! Can't one of the all-time greats of Macro get any love in this day and age???

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