Must-Read: Noah Smith: His Latest John Cochrane Smackdown: Free-Market Ideology and the Burden of Proof

Must-Read: Noah Smith: His Latest John Cochrane smackdown: Free-Market Ideology and the Burden of Proof: “John writes: ‘My surprise in reading Noah is that he provided no alternative numbers…

…If you don’t think Free Market Nirvana will have 4% growth, at least for a decade as we remove all the level inefficiencies, how much do you think it will produce, and how solid is that evidence?…

I don’t really feel I need to produce an alternative to a number that was made up as a political talking point. Why 4 percent? Why not 5? Why not 8? Why not 782 percent? Where do we get the number for how good we can expect Free Market Nirvana to be? Is it from the sum of point estimates from a bunch of different meta-analyses of research on various free-market policies? No. It was something Jeb Bush tossed out in a conference call because it was “a nice round number”, after James Glassman had suggested “3 or 3.5”. You want me to give you an alternative number, using the same rigorous methodology? Sure, how about 3.1. Wait, no. 3.3. There we go. 3.3 sounds good. Rolls off the tongue.