A historian’s perspective on how to deal with the Nobel frenzy I generally try to stay away from the Economics Nobel frenzy, if only because the hyper-personalization of scientific achievements it entails it at odds with how we historians understand credit dynamics in science. Economics research has become increasingly collective, drawing on expertise in theory, […]
Has AI been propping up the American economy? For instance “the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s category for investment in information processing equipment and software accounts for over 90 percent of economic growth in the first half of 2025.” The key question is what would have been done with those resources otherwise. Regardless of their specific […]
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is part of the episode summary: Tyler and George discuss the surprising lack of fiscal and monetary stimulus in the New Deal, whether revaluing gold was really the best path to economic reflation, how much Glass-Steagall and other individual parts of the New Deal mattered, Keynes’ “very […]
That is the title of a book co-authored by Philippe Aghion, one of this this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in economics. See The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations.Here is the Amazon summary:”Inequality is on the rise, growth stagnant, the environment in crisis. Covid seems to have exposed every…
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025 was awarded this morning for “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth.” The award was divided between Joel Mokyr ““for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through…
Tweet… is from page 196 of Arnold Kling‘s excellent 2004 book, Learning Economics: [O]utsourcing is symmetric. For every job that we outsource to India, India outsources a job to us. That giant sucking sound you hear is jobs being created in the U.S. to meet the needs of Indian consumers. That is guaranteed to happen.…
Back in the early 1990s, I wrote a paper called “The Creative-Destroyers: Are Entrepreneurs Mythological Heroes?” A reviewer at a journal said “The conclusion that entrepreneurs are heroes seems to be very dangerous!” That was in 1993.There is a picture of this review below. After that is a link to where I posted this paper here…
TweetHere’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal. Editor: Glory Liu argues that, in reality, Adam Smith wasn’t as favorably disposed to free markets as Milton Friedman portrayed him as being (“Adam Smith Is Known for His ‘Invisible Hand’ Theory. The Truth Is More Complex.” September 13). Her evidence for this thesis is thin. While,…
TweetMy emeritus Nobel-laureate colleague, Vernon Smith, sent the following email to me in response to this post. I share Vernon’s note with his kind permission. Don, Trump, like all businesspersons turned political, wants government favors, that is Mercantilism which is as bad today as when Adam Smith railed against such cozy relationships. Same for labor…
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.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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