Author Archives: wciecon
A suggestion for complicating the simple aggregate production function (bleg)
I wrote this post. Then I realised it was wrong. I really wish my math were better. So I'm turning it into a sort of bleg. I should have written the technology in implicit form as F(C,I,K,L)=0 rather than H(C,I)=F(K,L). Because the way I wrote it makes Pk depend only on I/C, when it should […]
My simple theory about why macroeconomists disagree.
Every other macro blogger seems to be taking a crack at this question. I like what they have to say. But I have a much simpler theory. Let's suppose you wanted to design an experiment to test the effects of monetary and fiscal policy. And suppose you had the power to do whatever you wanted, […]
Most Read Posts of 2012
Here are WCI's most read posts of 2012. For the first time this year, I've added the number of page views, normalized so that the most read post has a page view score of 100.
The depressing job of grading exams
I have a very good job, and I'm well paid to do it. The only part of my job I don't like is grading exams. I have just finished grading 30 exams for my graduate course and 300 exams for my first year course.
The Macroeconomics of Middle Earth
Smaug the dragon is typically viewed as a fiscal phenomenon, depressing economic activity by burning woods and fields, killing warriors, eating young maidens, and creating general waste and destruction. Yet peoples – whether elvish, dwarvish, or human – have considerable capacity to rebuild. Why did the coming of Smaug lead to a prolonged downturn in […]
Giving Deadlines
Last summer, while walking the streets of Kingston, I encountered a wandering horde of business economists, and joined them for drinks. We got onto behavioural economics and financial decision-making, and one of the business economics folks started talking about the charitable donations deadline. It would be a good idea, he argued, to move the charitable donations […]
Capital and interest in the steady state
My meandering musings. Mostly to try to clarify my own thoughts. Read at your own risk. What's wrong with this picture?
Does not ship to this address
Dad wants a golf ball retriever for Christmas. I found the perfect one on Amazon – the #1 selling Callaway 15 foot golf ball retriever for $27.80. But when I went to check out my purchase, the dread message appeared: "Does not ship to this address." I had been browsing on amazon.com, not amazon.ca.
Technology, preferences, and wages; kinks and curves, Moseley and Krugman.
Look at the red curve PF1 and the blue curve PF2 in this picture. Ignore everything else: That's the picture Paul Krugman drew, showing how a capital-biased change in technology would shift the production function.
Economics of the Apocalypse
Well December 21st is almost upon us and with it the end of the Mayan calendar cycle and the anticipated arrival of the end of the world or the end of the world as we know it. Well, what do the economic indicators tell us about how this fundamental shift may be accounted for by […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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