Over at Economic Principals, David Warsh summarizes 55 short papers about the big questions that face economics. Among the suggestions: Most popular of the pitches, judging from the number of SSRN downloads, is, Why Don’t People and Institutions Do What They Know They Should?, by David Cutler, of Harvard University (a pungent exploration of the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Economics’
What Should Economics Do in the Next Decade?
Posted in Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, tagged Economics on October 3, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Free Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Economics on March 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier today the fine folks at Brookings announced that they have made all past and current issues of Brookings Papers on Economic Activity free. You can find them here. Some specific papers that readers of this blog might enjoy (all from the Spring 2009 volume): Jim Hamilton on the “Causes and Consequences of the Oil [...]
A List of the Top 50 Economic Theories
Posted in Economy, tagged Economics on July 5, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Last year, the Ivy Press asked me to help them with a popular book about the 50 most important economic theories. My primary task was assembling the top 50 list (assisted by suggestions from my readers); Ivy then found authors to write pithy essays about them. The resulting book was published as 30-Second Economics: The 50 Most [...]
IMF: The Lasting Effects of Financial Crises
Posted in Economy, Finance, International, Macroeconomics, tagged Economics, Finance, IMF, International, Macroeconomics on September 25, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week, the IMF released a key chapter from the upcoming World Economic Outlook: Chapter 4: What’s the Damage? Medium-Term Output Dynamics After Financial Crises. As noted in the much pithier summary, the report concludes that: The global financial crisis is likely to leave long-lasting scars on the world economy, but governments can act to [...]
Lessons from the Fall of Lehman
Posted in Economy, Finance, Macroeconomics, tagged Banks, Citigroup, Economics, Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, Lehman on September 16, 2009 | 4 Comments »
As you have undoubtedly noticed, this week marks the one-year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers–the moment at which the financial crisis became a severe economic crisis. I did an interview on Fox Business on Tuesday to discuss some of the lessons learned. (My wife’s comment on the interview: “You need to straighten your collar [...]
Wall Street Goes to Washington
Posted in Economy, Finance, Politics, Regulation, Uncategorized, tagged Banks, Economics, Fannie Mae, FDIC, Federal Reserve, Finance, Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, Lehman, Pimco, Politics, Regulation, TARP on September 13, 2009 | 2 Comments »
A front page story in today’s Washington Post (“In Shift, Wall Street Goes to Washington“) documents the Capital’s rising importance in the financial world: J.P. Morgan Chase for the first time convened its board in Washington this summer, calling the directors to a meeting at the downtown Hay-Adams hotel, then dispatching them to Capitol Hill [...]
Why Economists Messed Up
Posted in Economy, tagged Economics, Keynes, Krugman, Macroeconomics on September 6, 2009 | 10 Comments »
The biggest thing in economics today is Paul Krugman’s “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” in the New York Times Magazine. If you have any interest in macroeconomic policy, you should read it. For one thing, the illustrations by Jason Lutes are quite entertaining: More important, though, is Paul’s evaluation of how we economists missed [...]
Positive, Normative, and … ?
Posted in Auctions, Economy, Teaching, tagged Auctions, Economics, Teaching on August 27, 2009 | 16 Comments »
Am I the only one who feels unfulfilled by the standard distinction between positive and normative economics? I am gearing up to return to the classroom next week, to teach microeconomics to incoming masters students at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Anyone who’s experienced the first day of micro class knows what’s coming. After introducing [...]
The 50 Most Important Economic Theories
Posted in Economy, tagged Economics on August 17, 2009 | 37 Comments »
Be sure to read the follow-up post in July 2010 What are the 50 most important economic theories of the last century? That’s the question a publisher recently asked me to ponder for a book they are developing. I’ve noodled on this over the past week and have some initial ideas. But I would be [...]


