Shiller has been right and also more consistent than just about anyone out there. He was way ahead of the curve in stating there was a housing market bubble and he has always advocated an extremely conservative approach to investing. He’s weird as an economist only because he worries alot about the impact of finacial manias/busts on actual people rather than making a fetish of the market itself. He thinks that there is a role for the government to play in regulating markets so that manias don’t grow out of control and in protecting people from fraud, and yes, bad decisions. But I really don’t see much inconsistency from him. As for being an odd duck, what’s the comparison? He’s smarter than just about anyone on how financial markets actually operate. And, he has also developed some of the most useful data streams on the actual state of the real-estate market. That’s all I really care about.
