I was consorting w/some big shots this week, including a few Extremely Conservative economists to whom Laffer is a figure of fun, particularly for his self-promoting ways and delusions of grandeur. Among the cat hissing re: Mundell was the observation that apparently Mundell's work implies that a common currency would not work for the EU. This is totally unfamiliar territory for me, but evidently Laffer in the passage below is not quite attuned to this point, if it is indeed true. If it is it would be grist for some amusing commentary on this year's Nobel award. mbs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (DH:) [From the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which, as Michael Thomas says, they run in lieu of comics. Laffer, besides writing this masterpiece, was the author of Jerry Brown's 1992 tax plan.] Wall Street Journal - October 15, 1999 ECONOMIST OF THE CENTURY By Arthur B. Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates, financial consultants in San Diego. . . . His 1973 article "Uncommon Arguments for Common Currencies," along with his keen sense of cultural diversity and politics, formed the basis of what now is known as the euro. Bob took the academic community head-on both by showing the fatal flaws in the logic of floating exchange rates and by elucidating the impeccable logic of the gains from trading money across national boundaries. . . .
