Also excited about work like this, looks pretty neat! And I also find it an odd choice to make an economic analysis that’s at least somewhat controversial[1] so prominent on a website that’s about sharing research?
E.g. I found this recent article by Noah Smith relatively convincing that a “neoliberal turn” is probably not the most useful way to describe the recent economic history of the US.
It’s very hard to deny that U.S. economic policy changed substantially from the late 1970s through the 1990s. But when we look at the overall effect of these changes, it’s hard to characterize them as the kind of low-tax, deregulatory, welfare-cutting, free-trading, union-busting “neoliberal turn” that pundits and even many intellectuals typically assume. Inequality increased and unions declined, but much of this was the result of policy changes made decades earlier, during the postwar period we tend to think of as being our closest approximation of social democracy (while some additional fraction was due to external changes like globalization). Deregulation proceeded in some areas but other areas became more tightly regulated. Some kinds of welfare were cut, but others were added, and overall the system became more progressive. The government didn’t drown in a bathtub; it didn’t even shrink. It simply changed.
Also excited about work like this, looks pretty neat! And I also find it an odd choice to make an economic analysis that’s at least somewhat controversial[1] so prominent on a website that’s about sharing research?
E.g. I found this recent article by Noah Smith relatively convincing that a “neoliberal turn” is probably not the most useful way to describe the recent economic history of the US.