Economists who warned of a housing bubble were purged from Fed advisory positions

Evidence

If one takes the simplest possible proposition—say, that the raising of the debt ceiling by an August 2011 deadline would serve to stave off a disastrous financial crisis and employment contraction pursuant to a technical default of the U.S. Treasury on part of its debt—then it was a snap to get 162 economists, including two Nobel winners, to sign a statement denying that proposition. Or take that larger and more contentious issue, the question of whether there was a bubble in housing prices by 2006, and why so few economists were willing to sound the alarm. There is retrospective evidence that a few prominent economists had warned the New York Fed of a housing bubble as early as 2004; in response to one such presentation, Timothy Geithner removed Robert Shiller from the Fed advisory board. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 532

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general theme across this book about how the economic ‘thought collective’ enforced discipline, and to the reader’s broader project on how neoliberalism’s resilience was maintained. — connects to: The Boston Fed exonerated economists by calling bubble warnings minority views with poor data — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 532; Under a dozen prominent economists predicted the 2008 crisis and were ignored — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 683
• SEED: Angles: ‘Geithner purged Shiller’ is a compact, damning anecdote usable in an essay on how dissent is policed inside institutions that claim epistemic openness.

Broader Connections

• The Boston Fed exonerated economists by calling bubble warnings minority views with poor data #qualifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 532
• Under a dozen prominent economists predicted the 2008 crisis and were ignored #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 683