From "You’ll Work for Us" to Only Short-Listed: Underappreciating Harvard

While several good people—including several of my wife’s relatives and one of our bloggers—graduated from Pravda-on-the-Chuck, I am saddened to note that their faculty’s efforts in creating the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has been muted.

Such, at least, can be fairly concluded by the nominees and final ballot for The Dynamite Prize in Economics, being held at the blog of the Real-World Economics Review.

Consider that N. Gregory (“Greg”) Mankiw was not even nominated. The man who shepherded and shilled for the 2003 tax evisceration* in specific, and author of the textbook that corrupts more Econ 101 people than any other was not even nominated.

Then Michael Jensen—whose theories (purely by coincidence, to be sure) are used to justify shifting corporate profits on a massive basis from the company that makes them to the CEO who “runs” it—did not make the final ballot.

Even more than the damage done to their endowment—at least the guy who did that is on the final ballot, though for his general U.S. work, not his Endowment-during-his-divorce work—not being cited as responsible for the GFC, and therefore not being seen as Masters of the Universe, is saddening.

The remaining nominees are Very Worthy, to be certain (excepting Paul Samuelson, with whom people much have confused Robert). Vote early and often.

*It is remotely possible to make the argument that the 2001 cut was based on semi-legitimate (though silly) projections of surpluses There is no such excuse for the 2003 abomination.