Macroeconomics without Supply

Paul Krugman writes:

…if you believe that a surge in private spending would raise employment – and even the critics agree on that – it’s very hard to explain why a surge of public spending wouldn’t have the same effect.

Brad DeLong writes:

But surely we believe that if the U.S. government were to follow the Countrywide plan–to send its representatives out onto the streets to have them walk up to people and say: "Here’s $500,000. You can have it if you go buy a house"–then that would drive a recovery, right?

What’s interesting about these statements is not so much whether they are right or wrong (let’s just say that it depends) but that Krugman and DeLong are so immersed in the Keynesian viewpoint that they cannot even see any other way of looking at the issue. Thus "even the critics" and "but surely we believe," as if no other view were conceivable.

Well if the only frame you can see is the "spending increases employment" frame then whether the spending is private or public may seem like a niggle. But many of the critics of mass fiscal stimulus have an alternative frame in mind, namely, that "employment increases spending."

Frame the issue this way and it becomes clear that the choice between private employment and public employment as a driver of spending is crucial.  Moreover, when we remember that employment drives spending we focus attention on the real allocation of labor and capital across sectors of the economy, on internal and external fiscal balance, on investment as well as on consumption and on time paths of development. The "spending drives employment" frame misses all this.