The Unbroken Window

Parts of this piece from Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman accurately capture some of the difficulties facing policymakers as they think about bank “re”regulation. Here is an example:
A second version of reform calls for a full recreation of the Quiet Period banking system. We’ll reinstate Glass-Steagall, protect the depository institutions, and let the investment banks sink [...]

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Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz has a new piece in the Economists’ Voice. Here are a few examples of his use of scientific economic language:
But despite protests by yesterday’s proponents of deregulation, who would like the government to remain passive, most economists believe that government spending has made a difference, helping to avert another Great Depression.
Of [...]

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It is always a delight to read Bob Fogel’s work.  He ends this 2004 paper with the following story:
I close with an anecdote from Simon Kuznets. He used to give a one-year course in growth economics both at Johns Hopkins and Harvard. One of the points he made was that if you wanted to find [...]

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Congratulations Elinor Ostrom! She shares the prize with Oliver Williamson. I am delighted to see the work that Elinor does be recognized  because understanding commons problems and institutions is an overlooked and extremely important part of economics from the standpoint of non-economists. Williamson, by all accounts, is a deserving winner as well. My prediction was [...]

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Daron Acemoglu (some say a future young Nobel Prize winner) explains conditions when labor scarcity and high wages encourage technological innovations and when they do not. My quick take, wonks will try to use this theoretical piece to justify interventions in labor markets that artificially push up wage rates –> arguing that doing so will [...]

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Pay attention to the government’s budget constraint. The nation faces a long-term imbalance between government spending and tax revenue. The fundamental problem is that the federal government has promised the elderly more benefits than the tax system can support. This fiscal imbalance will become acute as more baby boomers retire and start collecting Social Security [...]

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WHAM TV here in Rochester wanted to know what I thought about the President’s ability to impact the economy. Read the Hayek quote at the top of this website to understand what I was trying to say. Real economics is not conducive to 30 second news-bites, but Elizabeth Schubert did as admirable a job as [...]

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I just received my membership renewal form from the American Economic Association. I’ve never bothered to look to closely at it, but just noticed that membership fees to the AEA are means-tested! To be a regular member, they ask:

Annual income of $47,000 or less →$64

Annual income of $47,000 to $62,000 →$77

Annual income above $62,000 →$90

I wonder why these are [...]

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Becoming a Federal Reserve Bank President from outside of the FED system is a bit like the Vatican naming a rabbi to become a Cardinal.
Source will be protected. 

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The middle part of this podcast with Nassim Taleb (author of Fooled by Randomness and the Black Swan) has an interesting discussion on the distinction between what most economists are actually doing, and those of us who have respect for the Hayekian view of the world. It all mainly boils down to the traditional economists [...]

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