An entirely subjective report from the AEA sessions of some trends (compared to say five years ago). I am not writing about the sessions organized by heterodox groups as there were too few of them for generalizations.
1) Overall: The AEA continues to be ever more monolithic (as hard as that
is to belive). Grad students and younger professors especially show signs
of the near-capture of graduate programs by neo-classics and, as one
professor put it, an almost boot-camp like training regime. The presenters
(and even the presentations themselves) also seem to have ever tighter
funding ties to the Federal Govt\Bretton Woods\consulting firm complex -
without much effort at outside balance. In some cases, and in an earlier
time of academia, I believe questions of academic ethics and intellectual
objectivity would have been raised by such ties.
This said, having the program away from the East Coast did allow for what
seemed like a little bit of space for topics like economic history and the
history of ideas.2) Topical themes coming to the fore included health policy, public pension (esp privatization), corporate governance, deflation, terrorism.
3) U.S. govt. policy. I was eager to find signs of re-thinking, second
thoughts, or misgivings. I found few, if any. The "Republicans" were
adamant: full speed ahead - and at a faster pace (Hubbard, Forbes,
Barro). There were practically no 'Republicans' who spoke in moderate
tones (e.g. 'this far is good, but not much further') or even reflective
tones, except ironically Greenspan.
I looked hard to see whether the 'Democrats' present had found a newer
voice - but I did not find it. There was the much reported deficit hawk
presentation by Peter Orszag\Rubin (cited Krugman in NYT of 1\6), lavish
praise for Greenspan by Yellin, 'more of the same' by Rivlin, others talked
of the need to "fix" Social Security, etc. There was no effort to even
appear to have learned some 'lessons', in fact some younger 'Democrats'
showed a full display of their renowned smug arrogance - from the
podium. [Also, anyone know anything about the Peter Orszag and his brother
Jonathan? I see that they were Clinton advisors and that now they, Laura
Tyson, and Stiglitz have a private 'consulting firm' in the Bay Area
offering advice and lobbying to their former institutions. I suspect we
will hear more of them.]
One bright spot was Robert Pollin who although given only 5 minutes as
practically the only non-mainstream participant in all the AEA, very
effectively covered a large amount of territory.[The sessions I attended often had a broad review of economic performance over the last 15 years and a forward perspective. Yet there was NOT ONE mention of the massive and unprecedented shift in income distribution, with the prospect of an historical shift in the American economy and society back to a 1920's type dual economy.]
4) "Globalization" : There were far more international sessions (and participants) than there were say 10 years ago. Yet they were almost exclusively organized by and with either academics who are currently paid as consultants with the Bretton Woods institutions or the BW staff themselves. Unlike east coast conferences, no current senior BW staff actually came to California - all this was handled either by former staff/now consultants (Rogoff, Edwards), senior consultants (Kaminsky), soon-to-be staff (Aizenman), or Bush admin officials (Kristen Forbes). In one session, even a majority of the participants appeared to be either BW staff or mid-level officials from newly independent countries brought to the conference on a "training" program.
Some of these same senior consultants\employees were on the Program Committee that framed these sessions. Only one mild dissenter was included (Rodrik; I don't think Bhagwati really qualifies). There was no effort to represent the now very large dissenting movements from the Washington Consensus, and even Stiglitz and Sachs were referred to (by name, behind their backs) only in sneering terms. One panel on "Capital Liberalization" seemed designed only to refute Stiglitz and promote a new effort by the IMF to further "liberalize" banking in Latin America [there are, apparently, some specific not-yet-public proposals].
In some cases the panels, of IMF employees and consultants, were designed not just to present IMF ideas and policies but to actually assess the performance of their employer. In many cases, throughout the conference, there was no public disclosure of a financial relationship that one knows of only through separate sources.
One exception was Dani Rodrik (on global issues), although he was critical only on the narrowest grounds, his comments were clear and decisive.
Paul
