Macroeconomists offered almost no public defenses of DSGE after the 2008 crisis.

Evidence

What has been odd given the waves of incredulous disbelief cascading over the economics profession is just how scarce serious rationalizations of steadfast fealty to the DSGE model have been, emitted by orthodox macroeconomists after 2008. One of the very few instances came in a long review of John Quiggin’s Zombie Economics by the monetarist economist Stephen Williamson. Although he grumbles that complaints about the uselessness of DSGE models are a “cheap shot,” he nonetheless grudgingly deigns to explain to the madding crowd why macroeconomists circle their wagons around the DSGE. With touching candor, he begins his defense by appealing to “efficiency,” by which he means “It would be silly for macroeconomists to turn down the gifts [neoclassical] theorists have given us.” — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 793

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of how the economics ‘thought collective’ absorbed criticism through silence rather than active defense. — connects to: Macroeconomists mobilized after 2008 to obscure the crisis’s threat to neoclassical microeconomics — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 799

Broader Connections

• Macroeconomists mobilized after 2008 to obscure the crisis’s threat to neoclassical microeconomics #complicates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 799