One sentence from a Comment

In Robert Waldmann: Policy-Relevant Macro Is All in Samuelson and Solow (1960), DeLong quotes Waldmann on the Samuelson and Solow paper and the fallout.

One of the comments on Brad Delong's post opens with this line:

There is nowadays a claim that even though S&S were careful to deny the PC as a stable LR (structural) relationship, policy makers believed otherwise.

Not the shortest sentence in the world, but short enough. Yet I have trouble making sense of it. Why?

 

"There is nowadays a claim that..."

The word "claim" warns me that the sentence contains a statement that the sentence-writer is about to reject. So I must put all my evaluation on hold until I have read the whole sentence, identified the reject-able statement and the writer's response, and understood and evaluated them.

This is difficult for me, as I don't have the greatest memory.

"... a claim that even though..."

The words "even though" indicate that a reversal is coming, a reversal of thought.

So far, the sentence tells me that the writer is going to reject a statement, and that a reversal of thought is coming. That's all I know so far.

 

"... that even though S&S were careful to deny [something] ..."

Samuelson and Solow denied something. This denial is also a reversal. It is part of the same reversal that is introduced by the "even though". But on my first read (or, in my case, until I sit down to work through the sentence by writing these words) I think it is a second reversal. After all, I have put evaluation of the sentence on hold, while waiting for the complete message to arrive. And this is the second time the sentence tells me that a reversal is coming.

"... S&S were careful to deny the PC as a stable LR (structural) relationship ..."

This is the easy part. 

"PC" is the "Phillips Curve". It is the main topic of the S&S paper from 1960.

"LR" is "long run", as opposed to the short run; these are common concepts in discussions of the Phillips Curve.

"(structural)" confirms that "LR" = "long run". Come to think of it, so does "stable". And Waldmann has already used the phrase "as cyclical unemployment becomes structural" in his post, and was quoted by DeLong, so in context the meaning of this fragment is clear.

"... LR (structural) relationship, policy makers believed otherwise."

And at last I have worked my way to the end of the sentence.

This "otherwise" is the reversal we have been expecting from the start: S&S said something, but policymakers believed otherwise.

The sentence would have been easier for me to grasp if the "otherwise" came earlier. I like to read sentences by building the meaning as I go, rather than collecting words until I get to the end and then assembling a meaning for them. I like to write sentences by arranging my words so that no word in a sentence makes you have to back up and revise your understanding of what the sentence means. These may not be the best rules, but I do try to abide by them.

Okay. Let me take the whole sentence and shorten it to something I can grasp:

"Even though S&S were careful to deny the PC was a stable relationship, policy makers believed otherwise."

"S&S believed one thing; policymakers believed another."

That is the claim, the nowadays claim.

There is nowadays a claim that even though S&S were careful to deny the PC as a stable LR (structural) relationship, policy makers believed otherwise. 

"There is nowadays a claim that S&S believed one thing, but policy makers believed another."

 

Now I can read the sentence. The claim is that S&S denied the PC was stable, but that policymakers believed otherwise. Policymakers believed the PC was stable -- or so the nowadays claim says. But I don't yet know where the sentence is going or what the conclusion is going to be. That's because the sentence is about the claim, the discussion of which has not yet begun.

Okay.

In the comment that is the source of the sentence under discussion, the commenter offers (and provides a reference for) a quote from one of those policymakers:

... the notion that there was a *stable* Phillips curve tradeoff did not capture the support of the economists most closely associated with formulating monetary and fiscal policies, at least in the United States.

The policymaker rejects the idea of a stable PC, rejects it for himself and for other policymakers.

It is an excellent quote, particularly relevant to the commenter's opening sentence. And it turns out that, based on the policymaker's view, the nowadays claim is false.

Whose claim is it -- Friedman or Forder?

Forder's claim, I think. Forder says S&S denied that the PC was stable. And Forder says ... well, Forder says nobody in the 1960s thought the PC was stable until Friedman said it in his presidential address. So, not James Forder. I dunno.

// 

The commenter's original sentence is one that makes very good sense *IF* you already know what he is trying to say. That's a trap, probably a very common trap, for people who write. For me in particular, anyway. Something to watch out for in my writing.