William Dickens wrote:
>
> > Krugman, for example, pointed out that a place like Cato is
> >never going to publish calls for government expansion. Fair enough; but
> >is a place like Brookings (no offense, Bill) going to publish vocal
> >cries for the abolition of popular programs?
>
> Why wouldn't we? Depending on what you mean by popular programs Brookings scholars
>have always been in the business of advocating against poorly conceived programs. For
>example, Joe Peckman's often repeated mantra of "broaden the base and lower the
>rates," was meant to apply to all sorts of popular tax deductions including the
>mortgage interest deduction.
I don't think we really disagree here. Sure, Brookings people are happy
to make marginal criticisms of the status quo. What I think is very
unlikely is that they would publish something saying things like:
1. Let's quit worrying about "fighting poverty"
2. Let's get rid of discrimination laws
3. Let's get rid of immigration laws
To take another of my favorite examples, do you recall the "Looking
Before We Leap" project you were involved in a few years ago. The basic
premise, which sounds sensible enough, is that welfare reform programs
should be based on the best available social science information, which,
it turns out, is highly inconclusive. Hence, proceed with extreme
caution. When I read this, I suggested that when e.g. Medicare was
first proposed, Brookings didn't publish a parallel work emphasizing the
risk that the program might get out of control. I think you agreed that
the asymmetry was real.
I don't think the Brookings brand of scholarship is a product of
financial incentives so much as self-selection of personnel. Moderates
of all types feel comfortable at Brookings. Others probably wouldn't.
The same is true of other think tanks for the most part.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"[T]he power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in
those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."
-- Edward Gibbon, *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire*
