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Category Archive for 'Economists'

What is to Be Done?

Perhaps that is not a very funny title, but it comes from this: OK, I’ll bite. Not as hard as I used to, but I’ll bite. What is needed is a mandatory course on ethics and the limits of knowledge Well, “mandatory?” What is the meaning of mandatory? In any case I like the idea […]

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Hobgoblins

I have written this a zillion times before … but I have been in and around economics since 1993, and never in my entire career have I had a teacher or article or book teach me about “trickle down” economics. This is a perjorative term conjured from the ether by anti-market proponents, and the strawiest […]

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From a talk by Larry Summers: “[T]he current WHO budget for pandemic flu is less than the salary of the University of Michigan’s football coach—not to mention any number of people who work in hedge funds. And that seems manifestly inappropriate. And we do not yet have any settled consensus on how we are going […]

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Dear U of R Students, Russ Roberts will be making a quick visit to campus this Thursday. We are going to have an impromptu and informal discussion with him in B&L 109 from 12:50pm to 1:50pm. Come chat with him about Econtalk, his many excellent books, his rap video, and all things economics education. Hope […]

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In the Big Chair

One of the most dissatisfying things about the internet and the climate on campus is NOT that folks are hostile to markets, economists and capitalism (all different things by the way). Such dislike is actually quite understandable, and we can explain that in a bit. But what is most dissatisfying is how rarely I encounter […]

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Arnold Kling relaying Noah Smith relaying the state of the economics profession. I do not disagree. In a related essay, Smith argues that the current debate in economics is between the center-left and the radical left. The New Center-Left Consensus is attractive to academics and policy wonks. It draws on an eclectic mix of mainstream […]

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Tyler over at Marginal Revolution finds that about 20 states require some teaching of economics in high school. Implicit in the post is that requiring economics is a good thing. And why not? After all, the state of economic literacy in America is strikingly low, even among people who have taken some economics, and teaching […]

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You want to get depressed? (1) See how the “Food Babe” is abusing the FOIA to smear, antagonize and intimidate Dr. Kevin Folta of the University of Florida’s Horticulture Department. (2) See the latest in the Krugman Chronicles.  Classy world we live in. Did anyone ever learn manners?

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Robert Frank in Success and Luck

As with all of Bob Frank’s books, I highly recommend you read his Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. Bob taught me in grad school. I model some of my teaching after his. Nonetheless I part ways with him from time to time. But even though there are indeed bridges to nowhere and […]

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I cannot recommend more highly George Stigler’s old autobiography, Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist. You will find him to be far more thoughtful, humble, generous and circumspect than any crude caricature you will ever see of him. Reading these sorts of books makes me sad for what has happened to education on two levels. First, he […]

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