, Columnist
Economists Are Warming to Government Intervention
The free market won't solve its own problems, but sometimes policy makers can.
Losing his head start.
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Economists argue so much about everything that people are always asking them “Is there anything you folks agree on?” The usual stock response is “free trade.” But when Stanford economics professor Jon Levin took the question on Quora, he gave a very different answer:
This might seem like a dry, scholarly response, but for those of us who watch the econ profession, it is eye-opening. This is the first time I’ve seen a professor at a top school cite government intervention in the economy as the main example of agreement in the field.