Monthly Archives: September 2010
Stag Hunt and macroeconomics
A coordination failure is when rational individual behaviour leads to a bad outcome. Some other outcome would be preferred by all. Keynesians especially emphasise coordination failures, though nearly all macroeconomists say that coordination failures sometimes happen, and say the US economy is in one right now. That makes us optimists. Maybe this isn't the best […]
What Should Economists Be Teaching Less Of?
Over the past week, we have had a number of conversations about the deficiencies of economics education at the ECON 1000, undergraduate and Ph.D. level. Depending on the school, a Ph.D. student may never encounter anything on behavioural economics or experimental economics or economic analysis of law. There are all kinds of things I would love […]
How has the crisis changed the teaching of economics?
A must read: The Economist asks a number of prominent economists the following: How have the financial crisis and recession affected the way economics is taught? How should economic instruction change? For the 'how should it change' question, my views are closest to that of Harold James. As far as my own introductory course – […]
P-data, Q-data, and L-data
Economists have got lots of P-data and Q-data, and we pay a lot of attention to it. I think we don't have much L-data, except anecdotal, and we don't pay much attention to the hard L-data we do have. P-data is data on the prices at which goods are traded. Q-data is data on the […]
Another rant about the Globe and Mail’s coverage of economics
One of the featured articles in today’s Globe and Mail is on “Economists and their fairy tale world of prognostication.” I don’t mind people taking pot shots at the economics profession – I do it myself. But at least try to get the shot remotely on target.
Clusters and the New Economics of Competition
In response to Prof. Gordon's Some implications of thinking of trade as a form of technology, Paul Friesen wrote: Actually, I think manufacturing is special in a way most economists fail to appreciate adequately. Manufacturing clusters. If you do manufacturing, you create an environment in which more manufacturing is likely to develop. Clusters and clustering […]
Walt Disney, War and Taxes
In the 1940s, Walt Disney contributed to America's war effort through his propaganda cartoons. In The Spirit of 43, Scrooge McDuck urges Donald Duck to save up to pay his taxes – "it's your dough, but it's your war too." Because "taxes will keep democracy on the march." The New Spirit is stirring stuff – […]
Poor sales MINUS quality of labour
Update 3: I wish I had titled this post: "Labour quality: the dog that stopped barking". I see something a bit different in that graph that all the macro-bloggers have been blogging about. Sure, I see the "poor sales" that everyone else sees. But what about "quality of labour"? What's important is that "quality of […]
Some implications of thinking of trade as a form of technology
Mike's post reminding us of the wonderful story of the Iowa car crop – and its message that trade is best thought of as a form of technology – has gotten me thinking about just how powerful an insight this is, and how we probably should be using it more often when we think of […]
Greg Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics — the tourist platter. And math and PC.
When I first read Greg Mankiw's "Ten Principles of Economics" I thought they were embarrassing. But I really liked the rest of the book, and decided to become a Canadian co-author (along with Ron Kneebone and Ken McKenzie of The University of Calgary). I thought that when teaching I would just skim over the 10 […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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