The political method

Let's say someone thinks the Fed should raise rates sooner rather than later. Let's say that person is known as a hawk on monetary policy. Now let's say that person put together a model [pdf] that says this:

We conclude that in economies where the key friction is NSCNC and the net nominal interest rate threatens to encounter the zero lower bound, monetary policymakers may wish to respond with a price level increase. A chief rival to this response observed in actual economies—forward guidance on the length of time the economy will remain at the zero lower bound beyond the time when that bound is actually binding—would be inappropriate in the theory presented here.

Lo and behold the model comes out with not only that person's preferred policy but also says the policy that person opposes is bad. What a coincidence!
And now that person sends a copy of that study to the most prominent advocate of the the specific model.
Lo and behold, that advocate loves it!

Isn't politics the scientific method grand?

I bet you didn't think you'd be laughing when you read an economics paper ... laughing so hard you couldn't breathe ...

The private credit market completely solves the cross-sectional income inequality problem. It's quite awesome. I swear. (And can someone maybe label an axis, preferably two ... and what's with the Mathmatica 8 default formatting? Good enough for government work, I guess. What exactly does "non-stochastic" mean anyway? I used to teach a lab class and if one of the students presented this graph in their lab report it would have been all marked up in red. [Taken from the linked pdf, above]