世界银行首席经济学家、新增长理论的主要奠基人Paul Romer成为2016年诺贝尔经济学奖的热门人选。然而，罗默最近频频向主流宏观经济学发难。他抨击道，以卢卡斯为首的宏观经济学家们滥用数学工具并枉顾现实的做法已经到了促使“宏观经济研究”发生倒退的境地。在保罗•罗默看来，现代宏观经济学借用大量的“假设”与“数学工具”只是为了证明自己的观点，而不顾观点与现实是否相符。他在最新工作论文The Trouble With Macroeconomics的摘要中写道：

        For more than three decades, macroeconomics has gonebackwards. The treatment of identification now is no more credible than in theearly 1970s but escapes challenge because it is so much more opaque.Macroeconomic theorists dismiss mere facts by feigning an obtuse ignoranceabout such simple assertions as "tight monetary policy can cause arecession." Their models attribute fluctuations in aggregate variables toimaginary causal forces that are not influenced by the action that any persontakes. A parallel with string theory from physics hints at a general failuremode of science that is triggered when respect for highly regarded leadersevolves into a deference to authority that displaces objective fact from itsposition as the ultimate determinant of scientific truth.

        在此之前，2015年他发表在AER上的一篇文章Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth批评了数学在增长理论中的滥用，经济学家的数学模型并未带来增长思想的飞跃和增长政策的进步。

        下面把两篇文章放在一起，供感兴趣的朋友查阅。