Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The economic cost of populism

aeaweb.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 68 posts

Re: The economic cost of populism

#51

Post by vixen99 »

febra_ wrote: post #16
LAC-Tech wrote: post #12

The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me. As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.

What about the alt/far-right? They fall under the umbrella of populism and seem quite dangerous, especially towards minorities.

I understand the sense and to what end the term populist is often used but to what extent is a political party that wins an election, a populist party given that it's the most popular party? Does a landslide election result mean the winning party is a populist party? If not, why not? As to your question: can you give specific examples to clarify what you mean?

Re: The economic cost of populism

#52

Post by LaundroMat »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #14
LaundroMat wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have access to the article, but do they define "populism" in it? The same Wikipedia article you linked to also says > In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politician…

Yeah someone else linked it. It was fairly meaningless: According to today’s workhorse definition, populism is defined as a political style centered on the supposed struggle of “people vs. the establishment” (Mudde 2004). Populists place the narrative of “people vs. elites” at the center of their political agenda and then claim to be the sole representative of “the people.” This definition has become increasingly dom…

Well, it's vague, but not that meaningless. For one, it refutes the notion that populists' actions are actually what the people want, let alone benefit the people, because populists only claim to act against the elites and for the common people. This means grandparent's reading of the paper that what the people want does not benefit them (at least not economically), because populists only claim to act in the interest of the people.

As a side-note, it's interesting to see that their data shows that populists generally stay in power twice as long as none-populists and they are often removed from office in "non-regular ways".

Re: The economic cost of populism

#53

Post by toss1 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #24
toss1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Are we missing something? Yes H.L.Menken: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. Populism is about revenge of the narcissistic dullards who are sick of the experts getting to say how things run and what to do. Just because experts also get it wrong sometimes doesn't mean that they should be thrown out, yet the populists are happy to do it (usually backed by behind-the-scenes…

> narcissistic dullards who are sick of the experts getting to say how things run and what to do. I'm not picking on a easy whipping boy, but isn't that a rather good description of Mark Zuckerberg, his well documented disdain for the establishment, authority and traditional structure? Might it also encompass more of us "entrepreneurs" and hackers than we care to admit? All of us who regularly feel "all these so-call…

>>Might it also encompass more of us "entrepreneurs" and hackers than we care to admit?

Maybe. But there are two polar opposites to the "doesn't like existing solutions" approach.

Beyond that superficial similarity of conclusions, there is no similarity between a populist follower vs an upstart entrepreneur, scientist, etc. who puts in the massive amount of work required to gain the insight, and create a new and actually better solution to a complex problem.

Conflating the two is a critical error.

Re: The economic cost of populism

#54

Post by abecedarius »

tomComb wrote: post #28
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…

You’ve made a big leap in your assumption about how populism produced less economic activity. Maybe populism’s disregard for democratic institutions resulted in more corruption which hurt growth? Neither of us know.

The paper does try to look into some outcomes besides GDP growth, including indices of inequality and democratic institutions. They don't see evidence of improvements there.

Obviously these are hard to resolve in statistics, and people are biased towards their preferred pictures (both ways).

Re: The economic cost of populism

#55

Post by pydry »

RandomLensman wrote: post #19
Fluorescence wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they control for the fact that populists will have more electoral success during financial crises and such? AEA is the economic establishment so hardly the people I would trust to fairly judge those that challenge the status quo.

Is that even true on populist and financial crises?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3289741

Yes. It appears that Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick and Christoph Trebesch may not have been as conscientious as they could have been about reviewing prior literature.

Re: The economic cost of populism

#56

Post by inglor_cz »

toss1 wrote: post #15
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…

>>Are we missing something? Yes H.L.Menken: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. Populism is about revenge of the narcissistic dullards who are sick of the experts getting to say how things run and what to do. Just because experts also get it wrong sometimes doesn't mean that they should be thrown out, yet the populists are happy to do it (usually backed by behind-the-scenes…

Your argument somewhat hinges on supposed existence of experts who know how things run and what to do.

Are there even such experts with regard to the economy? The economic academia is full of competing schools of thought which prescribe completely incompatible recipes how to run things.

Which of those are experts and which are fakes? Which one of those schools would you choose to run things in your country?

There was an interesting example of Pinochet choosing the Chicagoans to run the economy in Chile. Chile certainly grew in GDP, but it also grew a bunch of societal problems coming from inequality, and once Pinochet was gone, the Left resurged, though arguably not to the levels seen before.

Re: The economic cost of populism

#57

Post by TeeMassive »

LaundroMat wrote: post #5
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…

I don't have access to the article, but do they define "populism" in it? The same Wikipedia article you linked to also says > In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politician…

I'm a populist and read and follow quite a few populist intellectuals.

My definition of populism is a political doctrine whose goal is to distribute power and decision making towards the people.

It differs from socialism whose focus is the distribution of wealth, traditionally done through a centralized decision making process.

It also differs from conservatism where an elite enforces strong moral rules and traditionally defers to big private institutions.

Populism is firmly opposed to demagogy. Demagogy is the practice of charismatic leaders to make fantastic promises if they'll be given more power. They do not empower the people, they empower themselves.

Re: The economic cost of populism

#58

Post by TeeMassive »

willis936 wrote: post #13
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…

That Nazi regime accomplished a lot of work. Hitler is history's most successful populist. Did he help Germany's bottom line?

The Nazis were very elitist and extended the power and interventionism of the economy to its extremes. In terms of votes they never were popular. They were the opposite of populists.

Re: The economic cost of populism

#59

Post by TeeMassive »

hkpack wrote: post #17
LAC-Tech wrote: post #12

The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me. As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.

For the majority of cases, it just means "ignore the complexity of reality and go with the simple solution". Sometimes, populists do really believe in what they are saying and doing. And the simplicity is what makes them popular - hence populism. The problem is that reality doesn't care. I have yet to see the case when following a populist leader doesn't end up in a disaster.

The alternative is what? Always defer to expert elites just because they pretend to have a grasp on the "complexity of reality" as good philosopher kings?

How did that ever not ended up in disaster and the worse calamities?

Re: The economic cost of populism

#60

Post by TeeMassive »

febra_ wrote: post #16
LAC-Tech wrote: post #12

The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me. As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.

What about the alt/far-right? They fall under the umbrella of populism and seem quite dangerous, especially towards minorities.

They're elitists, no populists.
Post reply on HN