The Latest Nobel

I know almost nothing about economics--much less the Nobel Prize--other than what I read on this blog, but I do enjoy the Hall of Fame humor.

Dr. Kling, I understand that you are unimpressed with a Nobel for DSGE, rational expectations, and Vector autoregressions, all tools that have led to huge scholarly output but little practical relevance. In a sense, their work did not help us learn more about the macroeconomy. But wouldn't you agree that at least their work showed us that what we thought we knew (old Keynesian macro) clearly was wrong? So we replaced a faulty theory with a void of applicable theory.

I'm not sure if Blyleven is the best comparison here. The man is 5th all time in career strikeouts and 9th in career shutouts. I'd call that historically important.

Having grown up in Minnesota, then moved away, real far away, I believe FiftySeven to be a Minnesotan. They have a peculiar way about them, they find it really hard to take a joke. Especially about their sports heroes. Maybe I'm wrong. If so, FiftySeven, I apologize.

But if you go on about how Fran Tarkenton was a better quarterback than Roger Staubach, I'll know for certain you're from Minnesota.

Back in the day, us econ students up there (I went to school near the UofM) heard Sargent this and Sargent that all the time.

Congrats to Sargent and Simms!

Mike -- No offense taken, though I am not from Minnesota. I've just followed the debate over Blyleven's Hall of Fame merits pretty closely, and always felt he was more than worthy of induction (especially compared to Rice, Dawson, etc.), and never understood why there was any doubt.

If I had known more about Sargent & Simms when I first read the post, I would have realized the joke was more about Minnesotans than Blyleven's credentials; my mistake.

'... not historically important.' Really? You have a telling sense of history.

This is Arnold's blind spot. It is pure MIT snobbery. Even if they're totally wrong, they are most certainly "historically important" by any reasonable metric. It is precisely this attitude which sank Cambridge, MA's influence on macro. Rather than engaging they withdrew and lost the war.