Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

Second Reply to Bergh

by

*Peter H. Lindert* is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis. His books and journal articles have dealt with modern inequality trends, the welfare state, human fertility, international debt crisis, international trade

Abstract

I AM PLEASED THAT IN HIS SECOND COMMENT ANDREAS BERGH (2006b) has decided to “try even harder to recur to the facts,” and agrees that on the key econometric front our “actual disagreement is very small” (pp. 452, 453). He also now reveals that he is “in fact rather friendly to the welfare state.” We seem to have achieved some convergence.