George Mason Economics Department Embarrasses Itself

George Mason University

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Donald Boudreaux earned a PhD in economics from Auburn University three decades ago. He is currently a professor of economics at George Mason University. Two days ago he wrote this in the New York Times:

Not long ago an academic paper by the economists David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson garnered an unusual amount of public attention because of its estimate that trade with China from 1999 to 2011 destroyed 2.4 million jobs in the United States.

These estimates of jobs destroyed by trade sound big, but they’re actually tiny. Relative to overall routine job destruction and creation — “job churn” — the number of American jobs destroyed by trade is minuscule. In January alone, the number of American workers who were laid off or dismissed from their jobs was 1.8 million. The number of workers who quit their jobs that month was 3.3 million….In a normal year, then, the number of workers laid off or dismissed averages 21 million….Clearly, trade is a trifling source of job loss when compared with other sources. These other sources are ordinary economic changes that, like trade, fuel our high standard of living.

This is nuts. It’s like saying a few degrees of climate change is no big deal because the temperature changes 20 or 30 degrees every single day when the sun goes down. Jared Bernstein asked David Autor what he thought of this:

It’s unfortunate that a Ph.D. economist would not recognize the crucial difference between gross and net job losses. By Boudreaux’s logic, since “in a normal year, then, the number of workers laid off or dismissed averages 21 million,” the U.S. Great Recession was a negligible event: the U.S. lost fewer than 4 million jobs in the first year (a mere one-quarter’s worth of job losses) and no more than another 2 million in the second year (only a month’s worth). It’s remarkable that we even noticed!

I find it hard to believe that Boudreaux does not, in fact, recognize this. So why did he say it? That is a mystery, and one worth finding the answer to.

On a side note, I’d also take the Times to task for this. It’s fine for them to invite credentialed economists to opine on issues of the day, even if they have contrary views. It’s another thing for them not to notice opinions so bizarre that even a layman recognizes them as specious. Why did they publish this?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate