Economic links
Sometimes, you ask a question and you just hit comedy gold.
The funniest piece on monetary economics you are ever going to read (no, really).
Responding to the viral cartoon on Quantitative Easing. (The original animation falls into the “very funny but not entirely accurate” category.)
The follow-up to the Hayek-versus-Keynes “Fear the Boom and Bust” rap, with explanation of its origins.
About the economics of space colonisation.
A nice distinction between free markets and capitalism.
Nice post on the Tennessee fire department which left a house burn down when they had not paid their insurance. (Do read the comments.)
A podcast on economic signalling and farmers versus foragers.
Site to get Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.
Link to paper on the effect of the US Supreme Court’s Kelo property rights decision on business formation.
A useful post on the efficient market hypothesis. John Quiggin critiquing the efficient market hypothesis.
Nice post on supply-side economics. And on global “imbalances”.
Arguing for a notion of aggregate demand that includes net change in debt. The post is worth it just for Irving Fisher’s 1933 article on the Great Depression: which is much more sensible (even given the archaic language) than a whole lot of stuff written since.
Looking at the Iranian economy. Those who think that economic collapse will do in the mullahocracy are engaging in wishful thinking.
About debates over aid. Looking at the “development pay-off” (hard to reach, but getting bigger all the time). Study finds that it was better to be colonised by the British than the French. Making a crucial point about economic growth:
Economic growth is terribly important. Small differences in growth rates eventually overwhelm most other considerations, so the clustering and innovation externalities that create growth differences deserve far more public attention.
Things are looking up for the world’s poor.
A post with a series of useful (and clear) graphical comparisons of the US, Germany and Japan. A projection that the US will not recover its employment levels from the recession until 2020.
Study suggests that Europe’s non-European (male) immigrants are de-assimilating:
For women, the second generation is slowly assimilating. Whereas the first generation works 35% less than natives, the second generation works 27% less than natives, an improvement of 8 percentage points. (the figures are the non-weighted, arithmetic mean of the 3 countries, below I have put data in each one).
For men however the trend is the opposite. The second generation non-European immigrants are less likely to work than their parents! While the first generation work 10% less than natives, the second generation works 24% less, a deterioration of 14 percentage points.
The paper.
Blaming Ireland’s woes on joining the euro. Or on joining the euro and guaranteeing all bank creditors. Considering possible responses to Ireland’s fiscal and financial woes. The euro was a dumb idea: replacing exchange rate crises with much, much bigger bank and sovereign debt crises is NOT an improvement. (Krugman has some useful posts on the problems with the euro.)
A nice piece on why price indices (such as the CPI) are so problematic. Post with more discussion and link to a couple of classic papers (one using the example of the price of light, the other the example of women’s clothes).
Scandinavian Central Banks like to tell folk what they are doing and why.
China is considering bringing in price controls to deal with inflation: Ronald Reagan had a line about this never working since the time of Diocletian (correct). Arguing against the push to get China to revalue the yuan:
Instead, the dollar, euro and yen all need to depreciate. At first glance this seems impossible; how can all currencies depreciate against each other? And what if China doesn’t allow the yuan to appreciate? In fact all currencies can depreciate at the same time-in terms of goods and services, which is what really matters.
On how Milton Friedman would not support recent US monetary policy. A nice obituary and appreciation of Milton. Defending the current chair of the Fed. Post with a link to three papers against monetary authorities trying to manage asset prices.
Noting policy parallels in the US between the 1930s and now. Graphing money supply aggregates in the US. About disinflation pressures in the US:
Both deflationary and disinflationary pressures are relatively large by historical standards. Over a sixth of consumer spending is on goods and services for which prices are declining, while three-fourths is on goods and services for which inflation has slowed. Moreover, the relatively high level of disinflationary pressure is concentrated in the goods and services that make up core inflation. Thus, there seems to be little evidence of any broad-based upward pressures on inflation.
If you think there is a serious risk of inflation in the US at the moment you are either a twit about monetary economics or the only thing that matters to you is that Obama loses in 2012. (The former is another reprise of the 1930s: people got all angsty about inflationary pressures [!!] back then too.)
Looking at the problems in the UK housing industry.
Everything you wanted to know about the Oz housing market, but were too worried to ask. Tracking housing bubbles by comparing total value of housing stock to GDP: on that measure Oz is way up in housing price bubble territory. About recent Treasury comments on Oz housing prices. More. An ex-banker on problems in the Oz banking system. More on that. The Reserve Bank apparently intervened to stop governments releasing more land for housing. Noting the RBA has changed its mind on such matters.
The funniest piece on monetary economics you are ever going to read (no, really).
Responding to the viral cartoon on Quantitative Easing. (The original animation falls into the “very funny but not entirely accurate” category.)
The follow-up to the Hayek-versus-Keynes “Fear the Boom and Bust” rap, with explanation of its origins.
About the economics of space colonisation.
A nice distinction between free markets and capitalism.
Nice post on the Tennessee fire department which left a house burn down when they had not paid their insurance. (Do read the comments.)
A podcast on economic signalling and farmers versus foragers.
Site to get Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.
Link to paper on the effect of the US Supreme Court’s Kelo property rights decision on business formation.
A useful post on the efficient market hypothesis. John Quiggin critiquing the efficient market hypothesis.
Nice post on supply-side economics. And on global “imbalances”.
Arguing for a notion of aggregate demand that includes net change in debt. The post is worth it just for Irving Fisher’s 1933 article on the Great Depression: which is much more sensible (even given the archaic language) than a whole lot of stuff written since.
Looking at the Iranian economy. Those who think that economic collapse will do in the mullahocracy are engaging in wishful thinking.
About debates over aid. Looking at the “development pay-off” (hard to reach, but getting bigger all the time). Study finds that it was better to be colonised by the British than the French. Making a crucial point about economic growth:
Economic growth is terribly important. Small differences in growth rates eventually overwhelm most other considerations, so the clustering and innovation externalities that create growth differences deserve far more public attention.
Things are looking up for the world’s poor.
A post with a series of useful (and clear) graphical comparisons of the US, Germany and Japan. A projection that the US will not recover its employment levels from the recession until 2020.
Study suggests that Europe’s non-European (male) immigrants are de-assimilating:
For women, the second generation is slowly assimilating. Whereas the first generation works 35% less than natives, the second generation works 27% less than natives, an improvement of 8 percentage points. (the figures are the non-weighted, arithmetic mean of the 3 countries, below I have put data in each one).
For men however the trend is the opposite. The second generation non-European immigrants are less likely to work than their parents! While the first generation work 10% less than natives, the second generation works 24% less, a deterioration of 14 percentage points.
The paper.
Blaming Ireland’s woes on joining the euro. Or on joining the euro and guaranteeing all bank creditors. Considering possible responses to Ireland’s fiscal and financial woes. The euro was a dumb idea: replacing exchange rate crises with much, much bigger bank and sovereign debt crises is NOT an improvement. (Krugman has some useful posts on the problems with the euro.)
A nice piece on why price indices (such as the CPI) are so problematic. Post with more discussion and link to a couple of classic papers (one using the example of the price of light, the other the example of women’s clothes).
Scandinavian Central Banks like to tell folk what they are doing and why.
China is considering bringing in price controls to deal with inflation: Ronald Reagan had a line about this never working since the time of Diocletian (correct). Arguing against the push to get China to revalue the yuan:
Instead, the dollar, euro and yen all need to depreciate. At first glance this seems impossible; how can all currencies depreciate against each other? And what if China doesn’t allow the yuan to appreciate? In fact all currencies can depreciate at the same time-in terms of goods and services, which is what really matters.
On how Milton Friedman would not support recent US monetary policy. A nice obituary and appreciation of Milton. Defending the current chair of the Fed. Post with a link to three papers against monetary authorities trying to manage asset prices.
Noting policy parallels in the US between the 1930s and now. Graphing money supply aggregates in the US. About disinflation pressures in the US:
Both deflationary and disinflationary pressures are relatively large by historical standards. Over a sixth of consumer spending is on goods and services for which prices are declining, while three-fourths is on goods and services for which inflation has slowed. Moreover, the relatively high level of disinflationary pressure is concentrated in the goods and services that make up core inflation. Thus, there seems to be little evidence of any broad-based upward pressures on inflation.
If you think there is a serious risk of inflation in the US at the moment you are either a twit about monetary economics or the only thing that matters to you is that Obama loses in 2012. (The former is another reprise of the 1930s: people got all angsty about inflationary pressures [!!] back then too.)
Looking at the problems in the UK housing industry.
Everything you wanted to know about the Oz housing market, but were too worried to ask. Tracking housing bubbles by comparing total value of housing stock to GDP: on that measure Oz is way up in housing price bubble territory. About recent Treasury comments on Oz housing prices. More. An ex-banker on problems in the Oz banking system. More on that. The Reserve Bank apparently intervened to stop governments releasing more land for housing. Noting the RBA has changed its mind on such matters.