Economists to Romney campaign: That’s not what our research says
Posted by Ezra Klein on August 8, 2012 at 11:58 am
On Tuesday, the Romney campaign responded to the fire it’s taking from economic analysts by unleashing some artillery of their own. They released a paper by four decorated economists associated with the campaign — Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, John Taylor, and Kevin Hassett — that tried to lend some empirical backing to “The Romney Program for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Jobs.”
Hubbard, Mankiw, Taylor and Hassett make three main points: The first is that this recovery has been terribly slow, even by the standards of post-financial crisis recoveries. The second is that the Obama administration made a grievous error by relying on stimulus. And the third is that Romney’s tax and economic plans would usher in an era of rapid growth that would both be good for the country and provide the boost to revenues and employment necessary to make their numbers work out.
Each of these sections include supporting documents from independent economists. And so I contacted some of the named economists to ask what they thought of the Romney campaign’s interpretation of their research. In every case, they responded with a polite version of Marshall McLuhan’s famous riposte. The Romney campaign, they said, knows little of their work. Or of their policy proposals.
“The historical record is clear,” write the Romney campaign’s economists. “Our economy usually recovers quickly from recessions, and the more severe the recession, the faster the subsequent catch-up growth.” The paper they’re relying on here is “Deep Recessions, Fast Recoveries, and Financial Crises: Evidence from the American Record,” by Michael Bordo of Rutgers University and Joseph Haubrich of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. So I asked Bordo whether he agreed that this recovery had been inexplicably sluggish, and whether a different set of policies could have dramatically shortened it.
more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/08/economists-to-romney-campaign-thats-not-what-our-research-says/
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