Saturday, January 06, 2007

Akerlof's Speech at AEA Meeting in Chicago

The end of the Friedman era ?

The NY Times today made it sound that the president of the American Economic Association's speech at this year's AEA conference in Chicago marks the end of the free-market economics which began with Milton Friedman in his 1968 AEA presidential speech. Judge for yourself, here's George A. Akerlof's speech.

It's pretty much well-known that the rubber hits the road in economics where it hits the peoples' pocketbook eg in regulation, taxation, spending, trade policy. Hopefully laissez-faire here wont be too effected, or, the people will suffer like, as it was said so long ago (even before Friedman), a road to serfdom.