I had kind of ignored an article in The Economist, but it was brought back to my attention today by Hunter, who writes of its insanity. He is right. In Britain, they are considering regulating trees even more than they are right now:
BSI British Standards, an official setter of benchmarks, is drafting guidelines on safety […]
Archive for the 'Economics' Category
As I have mentioned before, one of my students is particularly bright. I am bound by various confidentiality rules to not give identity or say too much, so forgive the lack of details. Many UF athletes speak English in a curious dialect, whether they are foreign-born or home-grown. Although this student does not have a […]
Here is some evidence that I might be spectacularly wrong regarding inflation. I have thought inflation was very high due to probable increases in the money supply, but this looks like it is not the case at all. Since I am not a believer that rising prices from supply and demand are inflation per se, […]
The Politics of (Monetary Policy) Science, Addendum
Published by June 5th, 2008 in Economics. 0 CommentsIn the time since my last post on this topic, many rumblings have occurred in monetary policy news around the world. The Eurozone is still on the brink of expansion, Zimbabwe continues its downward spiral, and so on. However in the wake of our presidential election, some interesting news seems to have gone unnoticed. The […]
Why math is useful in economics; or, the value of precision
Published by May 24th, 2008 in Economics. 0 CommentsThis summer I have been reading a little bit of Becker’s 1971 textbook, Economic Theory. I love this book because it is relatively short and has much interesting commentary which is omitted from other micro theory textbooks. The book’s strength is also its weakness—math often appears as an after thought.
Last night I read a section […]
According to The Everyday Economist, a PhD student at Wayne State University, Keynes gets a bad rap as far as his so-called General Theory is concerned. It sounds quite alluring:
Each businessman has his own subjective expectations of future profitability and other business conditions. If these expectations are pessimistic, businesses will invest less and therefore […]
The Threat to Economics, Part II
Published by May 22nd, 2008 in Economics, Technology & Innovation and Policy. 2 CommentsThe best of economics concerns itself with answering what, how, and why questions. Here are some examples: why does the quantity demanded of Wild Cherry Pepsi increase when the price goes down? How are people’s investments affected by raising the capital gains tax rate? What does this person prefer to produce? Answering questions such as […]
On Awkward Utopia, we have recently discussed how robust the results have been from the so-called science of monetarism. I think that as far as it goes, the jury may still be out, though some authors on this blog would concur with the Austrians that the science of monetarism will only be whole once the […]
This photo courteous Carpe Diem, via The Club for Growth.
The Politics of (Monetary Policy) Science, Part II
Published by May 15th, 2008 in Economics, International Affairs and Policy. 2 CommentsNo sooner do I publish a post about the politics of monetary policy than does Joseph Stiglitz make waves with a post that directly contradicts substantial portions of my post. It is therefore worth a cursory survey of his claims. Stiglitz is going for shock value at the outset of this column, where he writes:
The […]
New subsidies for salmon farmers! Aquanomics properly says Congress has acted “in its infinite stupidity.“
The Politics of (Monetary Policy) Science, Part I
Published by May 14th, 2008 in Economics, Technology & Innovation and Policy. 2 CommentsEconomics is widely considered a science, up to a point. What kind of a science is an issue still up for debate. Some believe it merely a “social” science, and it is, though it is much more than any of the other social sciences. In particular, it seems that microeconomics forms the basis for the […]
If you’re looking for the best place to learn a lot more about a given topic, the Handbooks in Economics series is a great place to start. These texts attempt to summarize research findings in many subfields of economics. They are not necessarily extremely advanced, however they are probably the closest thing there is to […]
Theory of Price Notes, Part II: The Decision to Hold
Published by May 13th, 2008 in Economics. 0 CommentsStigler has the endearing quality that he is amenable to adding the spice of humor to many economics concepts. He does so with examples of economics phenomena or in wry commentary. One of the concepts that this book has hammered home, that I have far too often ignored (and I think we have only mentioned […]
Theory of Price Notes, Part I: Tastes
Published by May 12th, 2008 in Economics, History and Entertainment & Culture. 7 CommentsRecently, I visited the subterranean area of Library West where the good old fashioned economics texts are located. Fellow UES luminaries accompanied me. I checked out several books that will make for interesting summer reading. Among them was The Theory of Price, 4th Ed. (1987) by the late George Stigler, a renowned Nobel prize-winning University […]
