Robert Higgs

Robert Higgs in 2006

Robert Higgs (born 1 February 1944) is an American economic historian and economist.

Quotes

• The world probably would have been much better off had macroeconomics never been devised.  Although I have in mind Keynesian macroeconomics above all, I include other types of macro models as well.  I even include, somewhat reluctantly, the whole quantity theory approach descended from David Hume to the Friedmanites, now known as monetarism.  …  In short, among its many other deficiencies, as spelled out by Mises and his followers, monetarism’s most fundamental flaw is identical to the most fundamental flaw of Keynesian, Post-Keynesian, New Classical, and other theories advanced by macroeconomists during the past seventy or eighty years: not only does the theory leave out critical variables, but it is too simple, being expressed in huge, all-encompassing aggregates that conceal the real economic action taking place within the economic order.
  • "Is Macroeconomics Really Economics?," The Beacon (Independent Institute, 14 August 2014).