better left-capitalist economist?

[© tweed]

Stiglitz is of course way more imaginative and broader minded and etc.  Krugman has been writing about the same three things for a long time now... who knows how Stiglitz would function if he had to write two columns a week, but we can say he is smart enough not to get wrapped up in such an anti-intellectual exercise.

liberal economists piss me off though every once in a while.. I was reading Stiglitz' intro to Polanyi's Great Transformation 2001 edition and he was writing about mass unemployment, and made some comment like 'then again maybe capitalists don't mind mass unemployment because it provides downward pressure on wages, but we economists see this as a structural failure...'  and I'm thinking, dude, Marx figured out that capitalists engineer unemployment way back in 1860, where have you been?  wearing a suit at the World Bank?

[Gustaf]

Stiglitz is of course way more imaginative and broader minded and etc.  Krugman has been writing about the same three things for a long time now... who knows how Stiglitz would function if he had to write two columns a week, but we can say he is smart enough not to get wrapped up in such an anti-intellectual exercise.

liberal economists piss me off though every once in a while.. I was reading Stiglitz' intro to Polanyi's Great Transformation 2001 edition and he was writing about mass unemployment, and made some comment like 'then again maybe capitalists don't mind mass unemployment because it provides downward pressure on wages, but we economists see this as a structural failure...'  and I'm thinking, dude, Marx figured out that capitalists engineer unemployment way back in 1860, where have you been?  wearing a suit at the World Bank?

Are you limiting to contemporary ones? Regardless, Alan Blinder is pretty good. Paul Samuelson is almost contemporary and also a pretty important economist.

You seem to assume that capitalists can easily engineer unemployment which is not really an obvious thing to assume.

I mean, Marx isn't that much used in modern economics.

[Gustaf]

As for the poll, I'm partial to Krugman, having taught seminars on his model and textbook for the last 3 years.

Also, the sharpness of his wit is very entertaining. I'm certainly not convinced by him on all counts though - sometimes I can't escape the feeling that he's almost like an Ed Prescott of the left.

[Politico]

Krugman knows trade and his textbook on the matter is phenomenal, especially since it mostly sticks to positive economics. With that said, Krugman obviously looks like a hack right now for falling back on the "the stimulus was not large enough" defense (that defense could be used for anytime a stimulus package fails to stimulate appropriately).

[Beet]

Both of them are opportunists to some extent, who found they got more of what they wanted out of being political public intellectuals instead of just king among the pencil pushers. But at least they have done some good because without the likes of them the debate would hardly even exist, and I think they genuinely do care about what they write.