Michael, lists like this are a dime a dozen. The best one can say for it is that some economists, a few prominent, disagree with something Obama proposes to do strongly enough to sign a petition.
We don't know from this statement how many are prominent, not quite so prominent, not prominent at all. Even university of affiliation doesn't settle that issue unless they are otherwise prominent because they might be grad students, adjuncts, who knows.
Moreover, different faculty members may have signed different versions of the petition. The statement itself is a very generic one, the sort you need to get widespread support.
Finally, I think but am not certain, that most statements from the Obama administration said the "spending more from government" portion of their policy was a "consensus" view of economists, not that there were no dissenters.
If anyone believed that the economics profession had single-mindedley left it's Hoover-like base, they were wrong. Friedman revived it and his influence grew, for a variety of reasons.
Nonetheless, the signers of that document should be scolded for their very bad history of Roosevelt's policies during the 30s. |
