Think tanks attached economists’ names to position papers they did not endorse

Evidence

Agnotological fomentation of ignorance occurs on many different scales: incidents at the individual level are much easier to document and understand than those that happen at the scale of (let us say) the bulkier subset of the profession devoted to macroeconomic theory. For instance, take the individual case of Joseph Stiglitz having to undergo a bit of targeted agnotology. Big money cascaded into financial economics in order to defend the sector from threats of regulation of derivatives in 2010–11. Many think tanks and public relations firms produced “position papers” arguing that any attempt to reign in derivatives would be disastrous. One such contract research house issuing papers was Keybridge Associates. Their report drew attention because of some very high-profile names attached to the document as “advisors”: Prof. Stiglitz for one, David Laibson of Harvard for another. The only problem was that, when the report was brought to the attention of those worthies, they felt impelled to go on record as repudiating the report. What Keybridge had done was pay them a prior retainer for some other purposes, and then gone ahead and attached their names to documents that they would not normally endorse, without notifying them of its activities. Now, was Keybridge attempting to influence the positions of Joseph Stiglitz? No; rather, it was pursuing the standard agnotological procedure of the manufacture of ignorance and confusion over what Stiglitz stood for in the minds of the public. The fact that this was just one element of a full-service agnotological offensive is demonstrated by another concurrent parallel activity, the manufacture of an astroturfed letter campaign to the CFTC opposing rule changes to bank control of derivatives markets, which emanated from similar entities. These are all standard practices from the agnotological playbook, orchestrated by firms located somewhere “outside” the academic sphere but “inside” the Beltway. And, when it came to the regulation of derivatives, money talked, and never shut up. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 671

Categorization

• SHARE: The Keybridge Associates sting on Stiglitz and Laibson is a concrete, verifiable case study a finance/econ-skeptic friend would appreciate.
• SEED: The ‘manufactured consent of the dead/advisory name’ practice is an article angle: how professional reputation is hijacked by Beltway contract research.
• XREF: connects to: Patronage, not analysis, explains academic economists’ crisis positions. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 874; Neoliberalism triumphed through fringe think tanks, not academic economics — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 377

Broader Connections

• Patronage, not analysis, explains academic economists’ crisis positions. #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 874
• Neoliberalism triumphed through fringe think tanks, not academic economics #corroborates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 377