The Famous Baseball-Watching Equality-Equity Graphic, Scrutinized
Turning to a classic policy debate: equality versus equity.
Read more...Category Archives: The dismal science
Why Have Facebook and Other Tech Giants Gotten Away With Gobbling Up Competitors?
Why have regulators sat pat as Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google have done deals that look like violations of antitrust law?
Read more...Impoverished Economics? Unpacking the Economics Nobel Prize
Yves here. Even thought the mainstream media, as usual, duly applauded the winners of this year’s “Nobel” prize in economics, there’s been less attention paid to the recipients than usual and far more criticism, some very measured, others more critical. The winners helped develop and promote an approach to development economics they called “randomized control […]
Read more...Herd Behaviour in Asset Markets: The Role of Monetary Policy
Data supports the idea that lax monetary policy contributes to bubbles. Yes, Virginia, some regard that claim as controversial.
Read more...How Performance Evaluation Metrics Corrupt Researchers
New research shows how citation metrics create perverse incentives for corruption in economics.
Read more...Secular Stagnation: The Limits of Conventional Wisdom
The debate over secular stagnation continues, yet orthodox economists are loath to admit that the needed fix is more demand, which means more government spending.
Read more...The Knock-On Consequences of the US-China Trade Tariffs on Global Value Chains
Looking at the math of the impact of tariffs on global value chains.
Read more...Keynes Was Really a Conservative
“The class war,” said Keynes, “will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.”
Read more...Kalecki, Minsky, and “Old Keynesianism” Vs. “New Keynesianism” on the Effect of Monetary Policy
Larry Summers, a barometer of leading edge conventional wisdom, questions Keynesianism as a distortion of Keynes and for its overconfidence in monetary policy.
Read more...Is it Really “Full Employment”? Margins for Expansion in the US Economy in the Middle of 2019
Many indicators say the US is close to full employment. Hours of work tell a different story.
Read more...The Sacrificial Rites of Capitalism We Don’t Talk About
How capitalism’s dominant narrative, that of self-interested competition, is at odds with other themes, like deferred gratification and sacrifice.
Read more...Ideology is Dead! Long Live Ideology!
Economists like to say they’re immune to ideology. Research shows the opposite.
Read more...How Richard Vague Discovered Gravity: An Interview + Book Review of A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises
Richard Vague extends his work on the dangers of private debt via his new book, A Brief History of Doom, on the role of debt in financial crises.
Read more...No, Productivity Does Not Explain Income
Why a widely-held view about productivity that is foundational to the claim that people are paid what they deserve does not hold up to scrutiny.
Read more...Keeping the Oil in the Soil
The goal of any serious climate policy is to keep oil and other fossil fuels in the ground. The central question is how.
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