The gender wage gap has been decreasing slowly and steadily over time. At least, that’s what I thought until I read this 2023 NBER Working Paper by Peter Blair (Harvard University) and Benjamin Posmanick (St. Bonaventure University). They present the following graph of the gender wage gap in the US (for White women, compared with White men,…
Clara Mattei, associate professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, recently published a book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism, (University of Chicago Press) in which she argues that the fiscal and monetary austerity imposed on Great Britain after World War I to restore the […]
In my post on Monday I drew attention (again) to the fact that New Zealand has made no progress at all in reversing the decline in relative economywide productivity (relative to other advanced countries) since what was hoped to be a turning point, with the inauguration of widespread economic reforms after the 1984 election. If anything, […]
Spreading Christianity was seen by the colonial powers as a way of civilising the native populations in Africa. Indeed, in 1857 David Livingstone wrote that “neither civilization nor Christianity can be promoted alone. In fact, they are inseparable” (see here). Among the many effects of colonisation, the spread of Christianity is seen as one of…
Catching up is about radically raising growth in the countries now at the bottom…This book sets out an [aid] agenda for the G8 that would be effective. (The Bottom Billion, pages 12 and 13) Sir Paul Collier, Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) is a British development economist […]
In 1798, Thomas Malthus told the world to expect collapse – “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
Recent Comments