Working their Way to the Bottom

knzn peers into "the duffle bag of economists":

Conflicting Opinions, by knzn: I know I should have been done with this last year, but after coming across this piece of Fedspeak..., I couldn't resist.

You'd have to dig pretty far down in the duffle bag of economists to find one who actually believes in the Philips Curve...

--Arthur Laffer, Founder and Chairman, Laffer Associates, Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2006

The Phillips curve is a core component of every realistic macroeconomic model.

--Janet L. Yellen, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, speech, Boston Fed Conference on Behavioral Economics, September 28, 2007

(Perhaps they keep the realists at the bottom of the duffle bag?)

My theory is that as the bag is jostled about, natural sorting causes heavyweight economists to drift to the bottom. Thus, one does have to dig down pretty far to find the most informed views.