Paul Krugman Denies Having Concurred With an Administration Forecast: A Note

In a previous article for Econ Journal Watch, I attributed to Paul Krugman a concurrence with the optimistic economic forecast put forward in early 2009 by the incoming Administration. Krugman reacted by denying that he had concurred with that forecast, pointing to a blog entry of his from January 2009. But Krugman apparently did not read my paper. It concerned not a blog entry from January 2009 but rather one from March 2009. In this note, I take greater pains to show how Krugman’s March entry, made in support of Brad DeLong’s criticism of Greg Mankiw’s doubts about the Administration forecast, can be interpreted as having effectively concurred with that forecast. I conclude with discussion of the shortcomings of the model that DeLong put forward when making his Krugman-endorsed criticism of Mankiw’s doubts.