When all you have is a hammer

Samuel Bowles’ has an excellent forthcoming book, “Machiavelli’s Mistake: Why good laws are no substitute for good citizens”, which argues that there are not separate conversations between markets and incentives on the one hand and philosophy and ethics on the other. His story starts with  Aristotle, who wrote in the Ethics that a constitution should [...]

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Economics in 2036

I tried to avoid block-quoting in my last post, which was intended as more of an essay. Here are some follow-up points on the question of where and how economics can go. Nassim Taleb, whose black swans I mentioned minutes ago, has a post with some predictions about our world in 2036. I think that [...]

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Toward an Economics of Stewardship, Humbly Thankful

I apologize for my light and sporadic posting recently. I transitioned jobs on Monday, and right now is the first chance I’ve had to sit back and think, relaxing in my old bedroom at the Krafft (suburban) homestead. It’s always nice to have a chance to gather with family, reunite with old friends, and give [...]

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John Cassidy has another great piece in the New Yorker, “What Good is Wall Street?” in which he argues that most of what investment bankers do is socially worthless, and yet the finance industry booms and salaries for top bankers skyrockets: Most people on Wall Street, not surprisingly, believe that they earn their keep, but [...]

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The Eventual Krugman/Modern Monetary Theory Convergence

Paul Krugman has a write-up on VoxEU about a new paper with Gauti Eggertsson, “Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap.” This paper is vintage Krugman (I say that having known about the man for 4 whole years)- he comes up with a simple and elegant model, and derives salient insights. I think he moves his [...]

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Economists Have an Equation for Everything

I’m not much in the mood to rip on the economics profession right now (unusual, right?) However, the above comic (h/t MR) reminded me to revisit this Krugman post from this morning. Krugman lashes out at David Brooks, who (hamhandedly) criticizes neoclassical economics. First, here’s Brooks: The economic approach embraced by the most prominent liberals [...]

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Growth Doesn’t Equal Development

It’s a well observed phenomenon that human development incomes are highly correlated with economic measures like GDP. However, that doesn’t mean that improvements in GDP cause, or even correlate with, improvements in human development indicators. Economix points to the UN’s new Human Development Report, which addresses this issue. As Catherine Rampell writes, As you can [...]

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You Fix the Budget

The New York Times has an interactive federal budget that puts you in charge of the nation’s finances [ht:cr], Today, you’re in charge of the nation’s finances. Some of your options have more short-term savings and some have more long-term savings. When you have closed the budget gaps for both 2015 and 2030, you are [...]

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Austerity and Higher Ed

David Ruccio has been posting a lot about the de-funding of public higher education. This is clearly a major issue. I think Mike Konczal gets the pithy award in his post titled, “The 21st-century retreat from public higher education.” In his conclusion, he writes: That right now is the moment our country is turning toward the idea [...]

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Gold Standard? What’s that?

Yesterday, World Bank president Robert Zoellick had an article in the Financial Times that called for a debate regarding a return to the gold standard to guide currency stability. The problem is that today, most economists don’t bother to study economic history or the history of economic ideas. I’m afraid Zoellick may have an idealized [...]

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