What Do We Actually Know About the Economy? (Wonkish)

Macroeconomics is better than you think, microeconomics worse, and data are limited

In a couple of days I’m giving a luncheon talk to the New York chapter of the National Association of Business Economists, and the title of this essay was the title I provided for the talk. To be honest, it was a bit of a dummy title, and I wasn’t at all sure what I would actually say; but I’ve been spending some time trying to pin things down, and found myself wanting to put it together in a little essay. So here are some meta reflections on economic knowledge, inspired in part but not entirely by the financial crisis and its aftermath.