Is the General Theory worth reading today?
My first class for graduate Macroeconomics II (ECON 607) was on Wednesday and I began, as I always do, with a very brief overview of the history of macroeconomic thought – a history which begins with...
View ArticleNoah Smith’s not-so-damning critique of DSGE models.
Noah Smith and Matthew Yglesias both have recent posts in which they argues that because DSGE models have not been adopted by investment bankers and other financial market participants that they have...
View ArticleRational Expectations and Reality
Last week, while I was going over the history of macroeconomic thought in class, I briefly discussed the concept of Rational Expectations and the place it occupied in the development of modern...
View ArticleDwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech (Jan 17, 1961) still rings true … .
The most often quoted segment: This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even...
View ArticleThe Robin Hood Principle and the Minimum Wage
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. However you feel about the ethical and efficiency implications of active income redistribution, I think most people would agree that Robin Hood was...
View ArticleInequality in Adam Smith’s World
Inequality is a fact of economic life and it is becoming more and more pronounced over time. It’s not exactly clear why this is happening but it is clear that it is happening. Inequality is certainly...
View ArticleIs Macro Giving Economics a Bad Rap?
Noah Smith really has it in for macroeconomists. He has recently written an article in The Week in which he claims that macro is one of the weaker fields in economics and even though there is little...
View ArticlePuzzles, Progress and the Scientific Method
In Noah’s reply to my earlier post, he interprets me as saying that purely empirical studies are “worse” than theoretical contributions even if the theories are rejected. I hope I didn’t give the...
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The Wisdom of Laureates
The recent New York Times article on the Minneapolis Fed President, Narayana Kocherlakota is making a moderately big splash on economics blogs because it highlights Kocherlakota’s prominent reversal of...
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