Paul Romer created a bit of a firestorm over the last week or so with his paper and posts regarding “Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth”. I finally was able to sit down and think harder about his piece (and several reactions to it).

Before I get to the substance, let me make two caveats. First, Romer has been relentless in continuing to publish blog posts and tweets about his paper, so I’m kind of hopelessly behind at this point. I will probably make some points that someone has made in response, or talk about something that Romer has already brought up elsewhere. If so, the lack of links or attribution is not intentional. I just haven’t caught up yet. (See DeLong, and Wren-Lewis for two responses).

Second, one of the papers that Romer discusses is by Bob Lucas and Ben Moll. I know Ben a little…