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 […]
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier (2007)
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier (2007)
05 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, defence economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, history of economic thought, war and peace Tags: Africa
Quotation of the Day…
01 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, behavioural economics, economic history, history of economic thought, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: capitalism and freedom, evolutionary psychology, The Great Enrichment
Tweet… is from my emeritus Nobel-laureate colleague Vernon Smith‘s splendid speech “Human Betterment Through Globalization,” delivered in September 2005 at the Irvington-on-Hudson then-headquarters of the Foundation for Economic Education: The challenge is that we all function simultaneously in two overlapping worlds of exchange. First, we live in a world of personal, social exchange based on…
Quotation of the Day…
John Stuart Mill on empirical economics and causal inference
01 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in econometerics, history of economic thought Tags: conjecture and refutation, philosophy of science
Written by me, here is a passage from GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of All Time, and Why Should We Care? A System of Logic covers many different topics, but for our purposes the most important discussion is Mill’s treatment “Of the Four Methods of Experimental Inquiry,” sometimes called “Mill’s Methods” and indeed receiving […]
John Stuart Mill on empirical economics and causal inference
Solow on Market Advantages and Market Failures
31 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment
Robert Solow (1924-2023) died last week. As a starting point for understanding his life and his work on growth theory, the Nobel prize website, since he won the award in 1987, includes an overall description, a biographical essay, and his Nobel lecture. I can also strongly recommend an interview that Steven Levitt carried out with…
Solow on Market Advantages and Market Failures
190308 [Webinar] Consistent Economic Policy and Economic Development
29 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, defence economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of information, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, fisheries economics, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, inflation targeting, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Public Choice, public economics, unemployment
Friedman and Schwartz agreed with Anderson, Tollison and Shughart on the public choice origins of the Great Contraction!
28 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: monetary policy
Interview with Angus Deaton: Critiques of Cosmopolitan Prioritarianism and Randomized Control Trials
25 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, econometerics, experimental economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought
David A. Price of the Richmond Fed carries out an interview titled “Angus Deaton: On deaths of despair, randomized controlled trials, and winning the Nobel Prize” (Econ Focus: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Fourth Quarter 2023, pp. 18-22). Here are a few of Deaton’s comments that caught my eye: On his shift from “cosmopolitan prioritarianism” to…
Interview with Angus Deaton: Critiques of Cosmopolitan Prioritarianism and Randomized Control Trials
Argentina Milei reform impressions
23 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, history of economic thought, income redistribution, international economics, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, monetary economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, unemployment Tags: Argentina
I didn’t have much time in Argentina, but I can pass along a few impressions about how Milei is doing, noting I hold these with “weak belief”: 1. He is pretty popular with the general population. He is also popular in B.A. in particular. People are fed up with what they have been experiencing. It […]
Argentina Milei reform impressions
FMI Public Speaker Series – Finn Kydland
23 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking
Finn E. Kydland Nobel Lecture at CERGE-EI
22 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Public Choice, public economics
Unconvincing
21 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: monetary policy
The Herald ran an op-ed yesterday under the heading “Why the Government’s new Reserve Bank mandate may lead to worse outcomes”. It was written by Toby Moore who served as an economic adviser in Grant Robertson’s office while he was Minister of Finance (a fact the Herald chose not to disclose to its readers). I’m more […]
Unconvincing
Central Banking and the Real-Bills Doctrine
21 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in economic history, financial economics, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy
Robert Hetzel, a distinguished historian of monetary theory and of monetary institutions, deployed his expertise in both fields in his recent The Federal Reserve: A New History. Hetzel’s theoretical point departure is that the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 effectively replaced the pre-World War I gold standard, in which the value […]
Central Banking and the Real-Bills Doctrine
Hawtrey on the Interwar Gold Standard
21 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics
I just got a copy of Ralph Hawtrey’s Trade Depression and the Way Out (1933 edition, an expanded version of the first, 1931, edition published three days before England left the gold standard). Just flipping through the pages, I found the following tidbit on p. 9. The banking system of the world, as it was […]
Hawtrey on the Interwar Gold Standard
Fritz Machlup (1902-1983)
19 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, history of economic thought, international economics
TweetAmong the many bits of unearned good fortune that have come my way in life was to have been a student in two of Fritz Machlup‘s classes at NYU. (In Spring 1981 I was a student in the last graduate course he taught on one of his specialities, International Trade. That course was phenomenally good.…
Fritz Machlup (1902-1983)
Monetary policy turning points
18 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: monetary policy
When the Reserve Bank MPC came out late last month with its last words on monetary policy before its extended summer break, my post then was headed “Really?“. It was a commentary on the disjunction between the Reserve Bank’s inflation forecasts on the one hand, that showed quarterly inflation collapsing (not really too strong a word […]
Monetary policy turning points
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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