Academic Arguments

Given this recent (and very angry) post by Paul Krugman on three economists: Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, and John Taylor , I thought an old post of mine is worth linking to.

It demonstrates how a graph can be manipulated to give different messages.  The graph was used by Greg Mankiw in a blog post.

As an aside, the term "academic arguments' is pretty fascinating if I say so myself.  Because the word "academic" means both "unimportant or theoretical" and "pertaining to things in the academia."  It's the latter meaning here which applies.