Take the Test: What Economics Type Are You?
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation offers a brief test that allegedly tells you what economics type you are. You can be pigeonholed as an innovation economist (Joseph Schumpeter), supply sider (Art Laffer), a liberal neo-classical economist (Robert Rubin), or a neo-Keynesian (needless to say, John Maynard Keynes). According to the test, I'm a moderate supply-sider, but there doesn't seem to be all that much difference between them and the liberal neo-classical types. Most of the people who've taken the test buy into Rubinomics.
The ITIF wants to push "innovation economics" which apparently means that private/public partnerships are just peachy:
In contrast, "innovation economics" recognizes the reality that a global, knowledge-based economy requires a new approach to national economic policy based less on capital accumulation, budget surpluses, or social spending and more on smart support for the building blocks of private sector growth and innovation.
Rather than focus on ensuring that prices accurately reflect costs to drive what conventional economists call allocative efficiency, innovation economists argue that the lion's share of economic growth is determined by productivity and innovation.
I would like to suggest that the folks at the ITIF need to read and reflect on Friedrich Hayek's brilliant essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society."
For what it's worth, take the test here.
