'Macro Wars: The Attack of the Anti-Keynesians'

I have a new column:

Macro Wars: The Attack of the Anti-Keynesians, by Mark Thoma: The ongoing war between the Keynesians and the anti-Keynesians appears to be heating up again. The catalyst for this round of fighting is The Keynesian Illusion by David K. Levine, which elicited responses such as this and this from Brad DeLong and Nick Rowe.

The debate is about the source of economic fluctuations and the government’s ability to counteract them with monetary and fiscal policy. One of the issues is the use of “old fashioned” Keynesian models – models that have supposedly been rejected by macroeconomists in favor of modern macroeconomic models – to explain and understand the Great Recession and to make monetary and fiscal policy recommendations. As Levine says, “Robert Lucas, Edward Prescott, and Thomas Sargent … rejected Keynesianism because it doesn't work… As it happens we have developed much better theories…”

I believe the use of “old-fashioned” Keynesian models to analyze the Great Recession can be defended. ...