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Gerald Carl Friedman is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He became nationally prominent during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election after writing an analysis of Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders campaign's policies in which Friedman concluded that these policies would produce significant economic growth in the United States (including 5.3% annual growth in real GDP) if they were enacted. Friedman also received strong backlash for these remarks, ranging from editorial pundits to fellow academics.
Contents
Report on Sanders' Policies
In early February, an article was published on CNN Money that described the Sanders' platform as boosting income and jobs. This article was based on the research performed by Gerald Friedman. The article sparked debate among economists and political pundits alike in the aftermath.
Criticism
Friedman received criticism from four former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers under both Presidents Clinton and Obama. Their open letter ends with the following quote:
As much as we wish it were so, no credible economic research supports economic impacts of these magnitudes. Making such promises runs against our party’s best traditions of evidence-based policy making and undermines our reputation as the party of responsible arithmetic. These claims undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda and make it that much more difficult to challenge the unrealistic claims made by Republican candidates.
According to a report in the Washington Post the letter from the Four former Chairs of The Council of Economic Advisers included an accusation that Professor Friedman was affiliated with the Sanders' campaign. Later, Friedman revealed that he was in fact a supporter of Sanders' only opponent in the 2016 Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton.
In describing Mr. Friedman's economic analysis, Paul Krugman - Nobel Laureate in Economics (awarded for his contribution in trade), has written, "Sorry, but there’s just no way to justify this stuff. For wonks like me, it is, frankly, horrifying."
Support
Dean Baker, lead economist from the Center for Economic Policy and Research agreed that the findings by Gerald Friedman were on the extreme side of possibility, he noted that the four economists from the CEA were blindsided by many economic disasters in the past decades and relied too heavily on their credentials without substantiating why they did not support Gerald Friedman's economic findings on Sanders' policies.
Baker has also called into question his noted friend, Paul Krugman, on his seemingly hypercritical remarks of Sanders. "I have tremendous respect for Paul Krugman. I also consider him a friend. For these reasons I am not eager to pick a fight with him, but there is something about his criticisms of Bernie Sanders that really bothered me." Baker goes on to note that the track-record of the so-called experts can be called into question, saying, "Given their track record, the public has some cause for skepticism when being told that the experts all line up behind a particular candidate (which happens not to be true)..."
Education
Gerald Friedman first earned his bachelor's degree in Economics and History from Columbia University in 1977. Later, he went on to obtain his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1986, with his dissertation titled, "Politics and Unions: Government, Ideology, and the Labor Movement in the United States and France, 1980-1914."