Must-Read: Roger Farmer: Not “Too Simple”. Just Wrong

Must-Read: Roger Farmer: Not “Too Simple”. Just Wrong: “Simon Wren-Lewis has a nice post discussing…

…Paul Romer’s critique of macro. In Simon’s words:

It is hard to get academic macroeconomists trained since the 1980s to address [large scale Keynesian models] , because they have been taught that these models and techniques are fatally flawed because of the Lucas critique and identification problems … But DSGE models as a guide for policy are also fatally flawed because they are too simple. The unique property that DSGE models have is internal consistency … Take a DSGE model, and alter a few equations so that they fit the data much better, and you have what could be called a structural econometric model. It is internally inconsistent, but because it fits the data better it may be a better guide for policy.’

Nope! Not too simple. Just wrong!

I disagree with Simon. NK models are not too simple. They are simply wrong. There are no ‘frictions’. There is no Calvo Fairy. There are simply persistent nominal beliefs.