Fri 14 Dec 2001
Foundation. Isaac Asimov.
Uselessness of theories that cannot be given operational content.
Portugal 1976 it was a major challenge to decide whether output was rising or falling.

Made it into the circuit. At least two really good papers. One to get noticed, and a second to show that the first wasn't a fluke. Once in, easy to stay in. A constant round of conferences and invited papers.

people were now paying my way to travel-- kept meeting the same people wherever I went.

I hope that I never forget that it is young economists in blue jeans, not famous officials in pinstripes who really have interesting things to say.

Policy entrepreneurs- who tell politicians what they want to hear.
Larry Summers
Greg Mankiw
Martin Feldstein

from http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/incidents.html
most senior officials have no idea what they are talking about: discussion at high-level meetings is startlingly primitive. (For example, the distinction between nominal and real interest rates tends to be regarded as a complex and useless bit of academic nitpicking). Many powerful people prefer to take advice from those who make them feel comfortable rather than from those who will force them to think hard.
Best courtiers, not best analysts.

paper critical of Robert Reich pol enrepreneur.

The thrill of directly influencing events.
Once you've seen the primitive nature of real policy discussion, you start to wonder whether third-order conditions or liklihood-ratio tests can really matter.
A colleague took me in hand.
Elhanan Helpman of Tel-Aviv

synthesizing work on new trade theory.
the merger of industrial organization and trade.
Market Structure and Foreign Trade. Ten month total immersion.

3-yr professional crisis. Outside, not obvious.
Inside, felt lost sense of what I was supposed to be doing. good papers felt like stunts,

not part of an ongoing quest.
not part of an ongoing quest.

my emotional reference group consisted of the most successful economists of my generation, I was not counted among their number.

low point- 87 turned down for grants, complicating plans to take an academic leave the next year.
no momentum in research.

2nd half of 87 explosion of productivity. not sure why.

1 yr leave from MIT spent at Nat Bureau of Economic Research.

NBER sev dozen smart young economists crammed together.

I don't know anyplace else as stimulating.

I had been accumulating material. Policy conferences.

dif conf circ
clever model-builder who had a good sense of trendy international econ issues & what was on the minds of those who cared about policy.

Advent of PC laptop international travels.
Technical papers
equations simulations and all in a hotel room somewhere fits my style.

extremely fast but disorganized and impatient worker.

A torrent of papers 87-88.

My basic model of exchange rate target zones.

earlier work drew its motivation from the logic of economic research, addressing enduring questions like "why is there international trade?"
now, policy concern - 3rd world debt reduction. EMS trend toward trading blocs.

A small model that provides a language for discussing the issue.
What are his small models like?

Why is economics a good starting point? is it?
Need quantitative data of some kind about the areas that interest you.

87-88 ended doubs about research.

The lavishness of a conference and its intellectual quality are almost perfectly negatively correlated.

asimov psychohistorian.

a growing app outside of international trade of what new trade theory had achieved.

serious gongs- israel prize elhanan helpman

joh bates clark medal AEA

past barrier.
not satisfied: I wanted to try something new.

the age of diminished expectations
a primer on the US Economy.
The age of diminished expectations.
11. Krugman, Paul R.
        The age of diminished expectations   338.973 K                 c1990.
a stealth textbook on economic theory.

blame marketing and distrubution for not being a best-seller.

reached a larger audience than anything else I had written.


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