Steve Fazzari on Stimulus and Keynes

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2011

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Steve Fazzari of Washington University in St. Louis talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the economics of Keynesian stimulus. They discuss the stimulus package passed in February 2009 and whether it improved the economy and created jobs. How should claims about its impact be evaluated? What can we know as economists about causal relationships in a complex world? The conversation includes a discussion of the underlying logic of Keynesian stimulus and the effect of the financial crisis on economic research and teaching.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts
0:13.9	of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org
0:21.2	where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to
0:26.5	another information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd
0:33.6	love to hear from you. Today is January 20, 2011, and my guest is Steve Fisari of Washington
0:44.5	University in St. Louis. Steve, welcome back to Econ Talk. Thanks, Russ. I'm happy to be back. Steve
0:49.9	is a self-evout Keynesian, a real one, not one that just finds it politically expedient. He's
0:55.6	been a guest before. And since that time, he and I have talked some more in various places about
1:02.4	the philosophical, methodological, economic differences between us. And I thought it'd be great to
1:08.6	have you back on, Steve, because we actually have a very pleasant relationship. We don't yell at
1:15.1	each other, which we both, I think, appreciate. Yes, very much so. And unfortunately, somewhat rare
1:21.6	among people who disagree about their economic theories. But I think I wanted to revisit some of
1:26.9	the things we talked about in the past and see where we are in the economy. So I thought we'd
1:31.4	start with that. We're right about at the second anniversary of the stimulus package that was
1:38.7	passed in February of 2008, February 2009, excuse me. At the time, it was I think 700 and
1:46.9	something billion now, it's, I think, agreed to be accumulated somehow to over-lover 800, maybe
1:52.4	8.62 as a number of words sometimes. So give me your assessment of what its impact has been.
1:58.8	Has it worked? If not, why not, and how would we know? Okay, well, first off, let me just say
2:05.7	it's a hard question. I think you and your listeners know that this is a hard question, because in
2:10.8	economics, we always have this problem, what's the counterfactual? What would things look like if
2:15.5	we had not done this? And that's the gold standard of being able to assess a major policy like
2:23.5	this, and we don't have that. So my own sense is that it's done more or less what they said it would
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.