1/2 social scientist + 1/2 politician = ???

A couple things in this interview by Andrew Goldman of Larry Summers currently irritated me.

I’ll give the quotes and then explain my annoyance.

1. Goldman: What would the economy look like now if $1.2 trillion had been spent?

Summers: I think it’s an artificial question because there would have been all kinds of problems in actually moving $1.2 trillion dollars through the system — finding enough bridge projects that were ready to go and the like. But the recovery probably would have proceeded more rapidly if the fiscal program had been larger. . . .

2. Goldman: You’re aware of — and were making light of — the fact that you occasionally rub people the wrong way.

Summers: In meetings, I’m more focused on trying to figure out what the right answer is than making everybody feel validated. In Washington and at Harvard, that sometimes rubs people the wrong way.

OK, now my reactions:

1. Not enough bridge projects, huh? I don’t believe it. We’ve been hearing for decades about America’s crumbling infrastructure. Summers (and, more generally, Obama’s economic team) had a staff, right? If they had put in the effort I think they could’ve found lots of bridges, water pipes, etc., that needed repair.

I also find it a bit annoying that Summers tries to have it both ways on this: (a) there weren’t enough projects on which to spend the money, (b) a bigger stimulus plan would’ve been better. It’s no surprise that people were skeptical of (b) given that the government’s most prominent economist was claiming (a)!

2. I think Summers is missing the point here. If everything had gone OK with the economy, nobody would be complaining about his style in meetings. But the economy has not gone so well so it’s natural to think that maybe he and the rest of the Obama team could’ve done better. And given the financial crisis of 2008, it seems reasonable to wonder whether Summers, Greenspan, et al. really “figured out what the right answer is.” Even at the time those policies were enacted there were many dissenting voices.

If being “focused on trying to figure out what the right answer is” actually gets you the wrong answer, then maybe you question your strategy.

Why does this bug me?

Politicians and pundits say silly things all the time and I usually just let it go (unless it happens to hit one of my pet peeves). But I hold academic social scientists to a higher standard.

It seems to me that Summers is torn between his two roles. As a researcher, he wants to admit his uncertainty and think about how to do better. As a politician, it’s all about Never Surrender, Don’t Give an Inch, etc.

I don’t know the best solution here, but if I were in this position, I might limit my public pronouncements to my area of expertise and defer to others on theirs. For example, Summers could say, “As a macroeconomist, my judgment is that a stimulus plan of $1.8 trillion would’ve been best. But other government experts told me there weren’t enough bridges to repair etc. Even so, etc.” Whatever credibility Summers has on the macroeconomics is diluted by his willingness to express certainty on any other topic that he’s asked about. Again, this looks to me like a worst-of-both-worlds combination of the academic’s freedom to speculate and hypothesize and the politician’s air of certainty.

P.S. Goldman has a talent for getting people to say things that make them look bad, as did Deborah Solomon (his predecessor in this NYT magazine column). Or could you make anybody look bad by taping them for long enough and then stringing together some of their more embarrassing statements? An interviewer could probably make me look pretty foolish in that way.

P.P.S. More on Summers here and here.

4 thoughts on “1/2 social scientist + 1/2 politician = ???

  1. There isn't any contraction in Summers remarks. He says that the stimulus plan that they proposed would have worked better. Their proposed plan was lower than 1200 billion but higher than the plan that actually got passed.

  2. I think you're quite literally taking the quote out of context: "finding enough bridge projects that were ready to go"

    Yeah, American infrastructure has many grievous problems. But that doesn't mean all the engineering and design work has been done and the projects are simply waiting for money to begin construction.

    The feds could likewise have offered to buy a new capitol building for each state — but none of those designs are sitting on a shelf waiting for funding. So you can get engineers and architects and drafters and surveyors working, yes, but actual construction work and a greater public benefit would take quite a while.

    The phrase "shovel ready" was used quite a bit. And even then some projects still weren't really shovel ready, and needed some additional engineering/design work.

    I'm not speaking to the veracity of anything said or not said in this, just that the phrase "ready to go" is critically important here.

  3. I think you may overestimate the amount of work that was "ready to go". It's a really common misconception that there is a huge glut of bridgework just waiting for funding. There's months or even years of work that goes into putting a project like that *out to bid*. This work isn't begun until funding is available, for the obvious reasons. Once that's done there is back and forth between the contractors and the state engineers, as their specs aren't always perfect out of the gate. Then the contractors need time to put together bids, and once a bid is finally awarded the work doesn't start the next day.

    So yes; the infrastructure is crumbling. Yes, there are innumerable roads, highways and bridges that need rehab or replacement. But the feds can't just give the states a green light and a blank check. I mean, they could, but the money wouldn't start making it into the economy for quite a while. That's why the emphasis in the stimulus was on "shovel-ready" projects, which are in fact in relatively short supply (or were at the time, at least). The worst part is that a lot of that money went to things that *could* be done quickly like paving jobs, which don't really put anyone to work, and then a lot of that money left the country quickly. We need a plan for and a sustained commitment to repairing and modernizing our infrastructure, and whatever your feelings toward it a stimulus package just ain't that.

  4. Everyone is certainly right that there weren't enough infrastructural projects ready to go. But nearly every state was simultaneously making serious cuts in education, which could have been avoided with better stimulus. And most economists agree that improved education has a long-term multiplier effect (i.e., the money you pay teachers goes straight into the economy, and you also get value added in the long term from more productive students). So maybe they couldn't have built many more bridges, but there were plenty of places where additional stimulus dollars could have been spent productively.

Comments are closed.