Monthly Archives: December 2011
Rendering More Unto Caesar
Given that the Christmas season is associated with giving, rendering unto Caesar is a suitable blog topic even if it is compulsory rather than voluntary giving.
Why the distribution of reality is skewed and so newspapers are biased towards bad news
"News" is the difference between what happens and what you expected to happen. If you have rational, and hence unbiased, expectations, then the news, on average, should be neither good nor bad. The good news and the bad news should cancel out. So why does the news that gets reported seem mostly bad news? Does […]
Bryan Caplan and Joseph Stiglitz
OK, I've said that Joseph Stiglitz gets Aggregate Demand wrong. It's only fair that I say that Bryan Caplan gets AD wrong too, for much the same reason. Where are you Mark, Paul, and Brad? Seriously, you're not allowed to do any posts criticising Bryan Caplan for this, until after you have said that Joe […]
The gizmo theory of the recession
I've just come up with a new theory of what caused the recent recession. There was a technological improvement in making gizmos. The productivity of gizmo producers increased, so the price of gizmos fell. The demand for gizmos is price-inelastic. So total revenue from gizmo production fell. So incomes from producing gizmos fell.
SRAS/SRPC; levels vs rates of change
Something's been puzzling me about the data for the last couple of years. (This post isn't very clear, sorry. I can't even get my head clear enough to explain clearly what's unclear to me.) There are two curves in short run macroeconomics: the AD curve, and the "other" curve. This post is not about the […]
London, ON: Learning about Income Disparity
Apologies for the shameless self-promotion, but if you're in London, ON tomorrow (Tuesday), I'd like to invite you to a free symposium on income inequality. I will be presenting along with Trish Hennessy of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Michael Shapcott of the Wellesley Institute. My talk – Income Inequality, a Tale of Four Countries examines what the […]
What not to wear, economist edition
What should you wear for an academic job interview? Ariel Rubinstein suggests casual attire: I would argue that wearing jeans and a t-shirt is your dominant strategy: If you are a good student, then a department that will not give you a job because of your "sloppy" appearance does not deserve to have you. If you […]
Italian Public Finance
It is odd how ideas, thought and reading evolve over the course of a day. I started off early this morning reading Nick Rowe’s post on structural deficits in the Eurozone and assorted news stories on the European crisis. I then began working in my office and while shuffling a few books on my desk […]
What is a (Eurozone) “structural deficit”, again?
I don't have much to say about the latest EU "agreement" that hasn't already been said. To me, it looks just like the old "stability and growth pact" warmed over, and with a bunch of judges having to approve budgets. (Does this mean we are going to leave fiscal policy to the lawyers? Do they […]
Some identification problems in the debate on taxing top earners
Two recent papers on top-earner taxation have made an important contribution to the policy debate on the topic, but it seems to me that we still have some way to go before we have an understanding of the phenomenon that is robust enough to use as a basis for policy.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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