Sixteen Nobel Prize– Leading economists signed a joint letter Tuesday warning the former president about what they see as economic risks. Donald Trump was to serve a second term, including reheated inflation.
“While we each have different views on the details of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is far superior to Donald Trump’s,” the economists write. It was Axios reports first letter.
“There is legitimate concern that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation with his fiscally irresponsible budgets,” wrote a group of politically progressive academics.
Trump has so far offered to run for a first term tax deductions constant, universal rates China-specific tariffs on all imports from 60% to 100% and pressuring the independent Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates.
Economists and Wall Street analysts alike predicted that any or all of these proposals could again push up prices, which have remained vulnerable despite cooling somewhat in recent months.
2001 Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz led the effort to publish the letter on Tuesday. His partners include George Akerlof, Sir Angus Deaton, Claudia Goldin, Sir Oliver Hart, Eric Maskin, Daniel McFadden, Paul Milgrom, Roger Myerson, Edmund Phelps, Paul Romer, Alvin Roth, William Sharpe, Robert Shiller, Christopher Sims and Robert. Wilson.
“Nonpartisan researchers, including Evercore, Allianz, Oxford Economics and the Peterson Institute, predict that inflation will rise if Donald Trump succeeds in implementing his agenda,” the economists write.
Stiglitz said he was compelled to launch the letter based on a recent poll showing voters trust Trump over Biden to manage the U.S. economy.
“A lot of people think Trump will be better for the economy than Biden,” Stiglitz said in an interview with CNBC. “I thought it would be important for Americans to know that at least one group of credible economists differed very strongly.”
The timing of Tuesday’s letter was notable, coming just days before Trump and Biden face off in the first presidential debate of the general election. The Atlanta debate, hosted by CNN, is expected to devote significant time to the economy and inflation in particular.
Trump’s campaign strongly rejected the position of the Nobel economists.
“The American people don’t need Nobel Peace Prize winners to tell them which president puts more money in their pockets,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt told CNBC.
In the era of Trump Consumer Price Index for December fell in three of his four years in office.
The Biden campaign took the opportunity to release the letter on Tuesday: “Top economists, Nobel laureates and business leaders all know that America cannot afford Trump’s dangerous economic agenda.”
In addition to the economic perspective, the letter of the Nobel laureates also had a different political perspective.
Many of these economists signed a similar document September 2021 letter Expressing support for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better package. At the time, critics argued that the massive spending packages would cause inflation.
At the time, Stiglitz observed that some people appealed to the fear of inflation to avoid the Better Investment Recovery project. “This idea is visionary,” he said.
After the U.S. economy spent last year recovering from the blistering inflation spike of 2023, Stiglitz and his colleagues are more cautious about inflation this time around.
The higher prices were partly due to pandemic-era supply chain snarls that have left the global trading system unable to meet rising demand from American consumers.
However, this demand itself was the result of the US economy, which has withstood the pandemic better than many expected – thanks to generous government subsidies such as the expanded Child Tax Credit and the Wage Protection Program.
Since then, Stiglitz said, Biden has made a successful effort to cool inflation peaks.
“Inflation has actually come down pretty quickly,” he said. “I would say it’s because of Biden.”