JUST in case you missed it between holiday celebrations, please allow me to draw your attention to a briefing in the most recent edition of The Economist which examines the impact of the economics blogosphere as seen in the growing prominence of several heterodox schools of thought. It's a remarkable story. From my perspective, the phenomenal success of the push for nominal GDP targeting, spearheaded by the once-obscure economist and blogger Scott Sumner, is the most impressive. The possibility of using a nominal output or income target as a monetary tool is not a new one, but it was almost entirely off the radar and out of the discussion before Mr Sumner began his crusade. It has now, Federal Reserve minutes confirm, made it into policy discussions at the highest levels. That's quite a success.
And while I'm certainly biased in my view, I can't help but second the message of an accompanying leader:
Previous publishing revolutions, such as the advent of printing, prompted similar concerns about trivialisation and extremism. But whatever you think about the impact of blogging on political, scientific or religious debate, it is hard to argue that the internet has cheapened the global conversation about economics. On the contrary, it has improved it...
The back-and-forth between bloggers resembles the informal chats, in university hallways and coffee rooms, that have always stimulated economic research, argues Paul Krugman, a Nobel-prizewinning economist who blogs at the New York Times. But moving the conversation online means that far more people can take part. Admittedly, for every lost prophet there is a crank who is simply lost. Yet despite the low barriers to entry, blogs do impose some intellectual standards. Errors of fact or logic are spotted, ridiculed and corrected. Areas of disagreement are highlighted and sometimes even narrowed. Some of the best contributors do not even have blogs of their own, serving instead as referees, leaving thoughtful comments on other people’s sites and often criss-crossing party lines.
This debate is not always polite. But was it ever? The arguments between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek in the 1930s, some of them published in academic journals, were not notable for their tact. One observer likened their exchanges to the brawling of “Kilkenny cats”. Both men, one suspects, would have relished taking their battle online.
The economics blogosphere, timely as ever, has provided a nice illustrative example in recent weeks, in the form of an ongoing debate on the nature of sovereign debt burdens and the implications of Ricardian equivalence for fiscal policy. Nick Rowe helpfully collects many of the relevant links here. The discussion is not always polite. It is interesting and enlightening, however. And it disciplines participating thinkers in a way that few other mediums manage.
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