----- Original Message ----- From: "JDG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 7:25 PM Subject: Re: US riches, actual and hypothetical
> At 08:33 AM 5/2/2005 -0400, Bob Chassell wrote: > >A while back, Dan figured out the rate of measured economic growth in > >each US political administration, excluding the first two years. > > > > * What would be the current GDP and median per capta US at the > > growth rate that Republican administrations achieved historically? > > Presume they were the only administration in power since 1948 (or > > whatever is the base year) and that they succeeded economically as > > well as they did. > > > > * What would be the current GDP and median per capta US at the > > growth rate that Democratic administrations achieved historically? > > Presume they were the only administration in power since 1948 (or > > whatever is the base year) and that they succeeded economically as > > well as they did. > > > > * And for comparison, what is the actual current GDP and median per > > capta US income? > > I'm not sure why you would find such an analysis to be at all interesting. > You are basically proposing running a model where GDP is a function of > the Party in the Presidency. > > I think that most economists would consider economic growth to be a > function of a large number of variables, and the political party with the > Presidency would probably be somewhere just above sunspot activity on that > list. This directly contradicts something Brad Delong has written on his blog. While what he writes isn't automatically the truth, I'm not sure why I should think that when he states the ranges of opinions of ecconomists on a subject, he would either deliberately mistate the range, or would not understand what ecconomists, as a whole, believe. It also says, in essense, that the ecconomic policy of an administration is virtually meaningless. > Nevermind the fact that generalizing the economic policies of Nixon and > George W. Bush and the policies of LBJ and Bill Clinton is painting with an > awfully broad brush.... It's more as though one looks at two distributions with different means. One can also look at pairs of potential policy as they change with time. This technique has worked for decades, if not centuries, in science; I don't see why it wouldn't work in economics. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
