Hypocrisy and Cowardice at Brookings

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The WaPo reports,

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, stepping up her crusade against the power of wealthy interests, accused a Brookings Institution scholar of writing a research paper to benefit his corporate patrons.

Warren’s charge prompted a swift response, with Brookings seeking and receiving the resignation of the economist, Robert Litan, whose report criticized a Warren-backed consumer protection rule targeting the financial services industry.

My remarks:

1. Robert Litan is one of the most decent individuals in the whole economics profession.

2. Giving Litan’s scalp (sorry for the pun) to Elizabeth Warren does nothing to bolster the integrity of Brookings. It amounts to speaking cowardice to power.

3. Go back and read this post. If Bob Litan crossed a line, then Martin Baily crossed it at least as far. The only charitable explanation for the differential treatment of Litan and Baily is that Brookings changed its policies in the interim (something suggested in the WaPo piece, but I do not know any specifics).

4. If I were in the administration at Brookings, I would not give in to political intimidation. I would obtain peer reviews of Litan’s study and either stand by the study or repudiate it, depending on those reviews.

10 thoughts on “Hypocrisy and Cowardice at Brookings”

  1. Certainly he couldn’t have benefited corporate patrons on the logarithmic scale as much as liberal policies that lock in incumbent advantage.

    Did she seek the resignation of Larry Summers, Obama, etc. after her faux hero’s journey? Polliticians are safe because they only seek to help their own interests.

    • What about MacGruber and his fees? Is he off the hook because whatever organization he is sponging off of doesn’t have explicit rules and because he is mostly personally benefited by providing intelligentsia cover to the government?

      Not to mention, there will be no discussion of the actual issue, the vagaries of academic credit. That doesn’t serve the purpose of cash redistribution so it won’t be discussed. Neither will we have a discussion over whether finance is an inherently predatory product, because in a mutually beneficial relationship you can’t help a customer by hurting the supplier. Doesn’t fit the oppressor-oppressed narrative and doesn’t help get at the cash, so it won’t be discussed. This is why you don’t give ground, because it is difficult to explain these ideas to stupid people (like how government funding and political influence is not research independence either), but it is easy for stupid people to claim you broke some obscure rule.

  2. “Litan, an unpaid “resident scholar,” acknowledged that he had violated a new think tank rule prohibiting researchers with such status from citing their Brookings affiliation when testifying before Congress.” Seems pretty unambiguous to me. Also not sure what “resignation” really means if he wasn’t paid by Brookings.

    PS Independent replication might be better than peer review. The medical literature suggests that funder bias is very common yet the (biased) results generally pass peer review.

    • How many people have done this and then been released after being singled out by a politician for criticizing her pet project?

  3. Since leftist policies generally don’t work that well an important progressive tactic is to silence the opposition. Not easy in the Internet era and with the first amendment and all but it can be done with intimidation, shaming and shouting down tactics. Look at the way they have treated the Koch brothers and the recent RICO threats against dissenting climate scientists for example. Of course, like so much the left does, it wouldn’t work nearly so well if they didn’t largely control the media.

  4. Does this demonstrate Ms. Warren embracing her Outsider status? It doesn’t get more Insider-y than the Brookings Institute. At some point, they will start to push back, too, if this turns out not to be a one-off stunt, which may be exactly what Warren wants. She’s like the Tea Party of the left, taking on the establishment, or at least that is her marketing strategy.

    • “Big oil companies shouldn’t be able to peddle phony research on climate change, and the financial industry shouldn’t be able to support phony economics hiding behind a think tank. People expect think tanks to be independent in the research they produce, and the fact that more and more of their work is funded by wealthy corporate interests — often in secret — further tilts the playing field for those with money and power,” said Lacey Rose, a Warren spokeswoman.

      Warren’s camp are liars. Nobody has suggested the research in question is phony. The reason Warren is bullying Litan is because he criticized her agenda. There was nothing secret about the funding originating from the industry being aggressed (where else would it come from? Warren?). The funding source was footnoted. He is and has been long-associated with Brookings in good standing and still would be had he not violated a minor new internal guideline while being the enemy of a powerful Senator. There is nothing about “not being allowed” to do anything. Industry is allowed to have an opinion on proposed new regulations. They are allowed to fund research and the research is allowed to be presented before Congress. Senators should not be allowed to make vague unfounded accusations that research funding equals research fabrication.

  7. I’ve noticed in just the past six months or so that Brookings has moved left in its rhetoric. Something to do with the political cycle?

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