[Jonathan Adler, October 11, 2007 at 9:17am] Trackbacks
Reflections of a Think Tanker:

Christopher DeMuth will step down as president of the American Enterprise Institute before the end of 2008. Concurrent with this announcement, DeMuth as an op-ed in the WSJ reflecting on his tenure and the role of think tanks in public policy.

Think tanks are identified in the public mind as agents of a particular political viewpoint. It is sometimes suggested that this compromises the integrity of their work. Yet their real secret is not that they take orders from, or give orders to, the Bush administration or anyone else. Rather, they have discovered new methods for organizing intellectual activity--superior in many respects (by no means all) to those of traditional research universities.

To be sure, think tanks--at least those on the right--do not attempt to disguise their political affinities in the manner of the (invariably left-leaning) universities. We are "schools" in the old sense of the term: groups of scholars who share a set of philosophical premises and take them as far as we can in empirical research, persuasive writing, and arguments among ourselves and with those of other schools.

This has proven highly productive. It is a great advantage, when working on practical problems, not to be constantly doubling back to first principles. We know our foundations and concentrate on the specifics of the problem at hand.

He credits part of the success of right-leaning think tanks like AEI with their having spent "30 years in the political wilderness," a course he recommends for newer think tanks of the Left. DeMuth also tosses in a tantalizing prediction: If Senator Clinton is elected president, corporate tax rates will decline during her tenure.

Ted Frank (www):
Press release.

DeMuth has been a phenomenal leader, and we're lucky that we'll get to keep him as a scholar.
10.11.2007 10:39am
frankcross (mail):
Well, I would be a little troubled about the open ideological orientation. Not when it comes to value arguments, then it's great. But when ideological orientation influences factual claims and empirical research, I think that is very bad, even dishonest. And it plainly does bias the factual empirical claims of the ideological think tanks.

You can criticize universities for this bias, but I think that criticism is much weaker. On descriptive issues, empirical questions, university research does not reveal the same sort of ideological bias. Look for example at supply side economics. In its extreme version, tax cuts raise government revenues under prevailing circumstances in the US, it is pretty much universally dismissed by good economics professors, including good conservatives. Yet that claim persists in the ideological think tanks. To me, that's troubling.
10.11.2007 11:34am
anonVCfan:
"It is a great advantage, when working on practical problems, not to be constantly doubling back to first principles. We know our foundations and concentrate on the specifics of the problem at hand"

This is a great point, and one that Brian Leiter has made before:

I think again of George Mason, the least intellectually diverse law school in the United States, but whose phenomenal success in the last 25 years is largely attributable to that fact. A familiar fact in academic life is that intellectual and scholarly work often flourishes in an environment where like-minded individuals can work together. By adopting as its market niche "conservative/ libertarian law and economics," George Mason has been able to attract a highly productive and accomplished faculty, who no doubt stimulate each other to do more and better work. One of the more unfortunate consequence of Justice Powell's introduction of the "diversity" mantra into American public discourse is that it obscures the extent to which in scholarly pursuits depth, subtlety, and the comprehensive exploration of the possibilities of an intellectual paradigm require the stimulation of colleagues who share some basic premises, substantive and methodological: it's some degree of homogeneity, not diversity, that often makes possible the deepest work.

I think Ilya's made a similar point as well about diversity within institutions versus diversity across institutions. Good to see that this idea has at least a few adherents.
10.11.2007 11:45am
Mr L (mail):
Look for example at supply side economics. In its extreme version, tax cuts raise government revenues under prevailing circumstances in the US, it is pretty much universally dismissed by good economics professors, including good conservatives. Yet that claim persists in the ideological think tanks. To me, that's troubling.

'Good economics professors' don't like the Laffer Curve?
10.11.2007 12:24pm
rarango (mail):
"universally dismissed by good economics professors, including good conservatives...." hmmmm--why do I think of the phrase "no true scotsman...." I do believe there is some empirical support for the proposition that a marginal tax rate of around 40% results in declining tax revenues.

That aside, the more interesting thing to me is the changing nature of research due to expense. With respect to Frank Cross' major point, re agenda driven research, given the reliance on grants to fund the often complex research projects, how independent can researchers who are dependent on grants from all sources really be? I don't know the answer to that question, of course, and I assume it comes down to the personal integrity of the researchers.
10.11.2007 1:06pm
Angus:
"Tax cuts raise revenue" is not the Laffer Curve. The Laffer Curve posits that there is one ideal taxation rate at which government revenue is maximized. If you raise rates above that, revenues drop. If you lower rates below that ideal, revenues drop.

Most economist believe that we are on the left side (downward side) of the curve, and tax cuts will reduce government revenue. Revenues dropped precipitously the first two years after the last Bush tax cut--in a way not seen since the Great Depression.
10.11.2007 1:12pm
M (mail):
I'd have more respect for them if they hadn't kept liar and fraud John Lott on staff for so long. Given that, I have a hard time having much respect for them since they quite clearly don't care about the truth.
10.11.2007 1:20pm
frankcross (mail):
rarango, I'd like to see the empirical evidence about the 40% point. Greg Mankiw and Martin Feldstin clearly don't buy it, and they're anti-tax guys

As for grants, what fields are you talking about? Most fields get their money from the NSF or the like, where there is no real agenda push. In other areas, such as with drug company funding, that may be a point.
10.11.2007 1:29pm
Elliot Reed:
M - I basically agree. AEI's purpose is to promote "limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies". It says so right in their mission statement. That's not really consistent with a search for the truth: you can't do a legitimate study by picking the result you want to prove first.
10.11.2007 1:30pm
Angus:
How does DeMuth harmonize this:

To be sure, think tanks--at least those on the right--do not attempt to disguise their political affinities in the manner of the (invariably left-leaning) universities.

When the AEI website says this about the think tank:

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics, and social welfare.

Sure, you can figure out the slant of AEI by looking at who works for them, but the same is true of left-leaning think thanks who DeMuth suggests are disguising their political affiliations.
10.11.2007 1:33pm
happylee:
AEI deserves to be honored for its defense of human life in the face of the manmade global warming bugaboo. It's truly the measure of a man and, by extension, of an institution of men, how tall he stands in the face of rabid lies that cause all other men to bow down and scrape. (Some of its neocon crap is, well, crap, but I ain't gonna pick up a stone.)
10.11.2007 1:43pm
rarango (mail):
Frank Cross: (Warning Heritage Foundation source) http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s159/s159.html

Grants I was referring to are not NSF grants, but from NPOs like Pew Foundation, or private corps like pharmaceuticeuticals (I am a in health care which is my frame of reference)
10.11.2007 2:03pm
Houston Lawyer:
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics, and social welfare.

Nonpartisan doesn't mean that they don't have a point of view, it means that they are not limited to a particular political party. They will criticize members of either party whom they believe are pursuing the wrong agenda.
10.11.2007 2:53pm
frankcross (mail):
rarango, I suspect that source just proves my point about thinktanks. It's pretty opaque, about its data sources and statistical analyses. Seems basically like assertions that the data say something. At least you didn't join its obviously absurd suggestion that the revenue maximizing rate is less than 20%.
10.11.2007 3:44pm
rarango (mail):
Frank Cross: Thanks for reading it and not rejecting it outright based on source. I honestly can't recall where I read the 40% figure so can't pull that one out. The best book on effects of marginal tax rates on tax revenues is Lawrence Lindsey's 1990 book: The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy.
10.11.2007 4:05pm
frankcross (mail):
Scully's a very respectable guy. But so is Paul Krugman. And I guess I shouldn't blame true believers for trying to propagandize, which means using the facts in a somewhat dishonest way to push their position. Maybe it helps to have passionate people make the best argument for their side (so long as you have both sides).

I just don't want it treated like serious research. And I wish there were more thinktanks that did serious research.
10.11.2007 5:00pm
Smokey:
From the article:
If Senator Clinton is elected president, corporate tax rates will decline during her tenure.
That means she thinks individual wage earners are not taxed enough. How do you feel about that proposition, folks?


Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, and Democrats believe every day is April 15th.

~ Ronald Reagan
10.11.2007 7:56pm