Think Tanks
I'm with Sawicky and against Professors Kleiman and DeLong on this think tank question. I would only add that the emphasis on unpredictability seems wholly unwarranted. Thoroughout the Social Security fight I turned regularly to the websites and personnel of outfits like the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the Centry Foundation for math-laden analysis of the latest ideas on the table. There was never any genuine doubt in my mind (or anyone else's) as to whether or not the verdict on the latest iteration of the privatization concept was going to be positive. Nonetheless, the research and analysis conducted was rigorous and of genuine value to those of us charged with covering complicated policy debates.
But that was becuase it was rather clear that the proposals in question were overwhelmingly bad proposals.
If those outfits were tasked with coming up with proposals for general retirement security, you would be less certain of their results.
The other crucial difference is the corrupted opinions from Cato and Heritage, and even more egregiously TCS (did you write something for TCS?). Those kinds of funding scandals should extract a heavy price to create a moral hazard.
February 22, 2006 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's always seemed to me that the Cato Institute's concept of the scientific method proceeds as follows:
Nonetheless, they're a real think tank full of smart people whose work is rigorous and of genuine value to those who share their views and are looking to bolster their arguments. Occasionally, their work is even thought-provoking to those of us who don't share their assumptions. Not often... but it has been known to happen.
February 22, 2006 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
And the Sandichman explains the Genesis of the species.
February 22, 2006 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point of the Social Security "fix" was to create 150,000,000 private retirement accounts for Wall Street to "manage" for a nice yearly fee.
Any "calculations" to get this plan through Congress were just economic theater...
February 23, 2006 1:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your counterexample isn't worth much, because the test is whether the think tank is predictable generally, not whether it's predictable in some particular case. If you give me the topic of a policy study from Cato, I can tell you what it concludes no matter what the topic is with some high level of accuracy. This isn't true of e.g. Brookings.
February 24, 2006 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink