Author Archives: wciecon
Wicksell and the hot potato
There is no monetary hot potato in standard Keynesian and New Keynesian models. That is because those models make wildly implausible assumptions about people's knowledge. They assume people have perfect knowledge about how much money everybody else is borrowing from the banking system, and how much they are planning to spend from what they borrow.
Medieval Monetary Thought
In my final class lecture this week on ancient and medieval economic thought, I discussed the work of Nicholas Oresme (1320 to 1382), a French Roman Catholic bishop who was also a philosopher, mathematician and an economic thinker. I found it interesting to see a career link between mathematics and economics so early on. More […]
In praise of cookbook econometrics
Cookbook econometrics has few fans. I am one of them. Cookbook econometrics provides clear algorithms for solving econometrics problems, without providing detailed explanations of why these algorithms work, or why specific steps in that algorithm are required.
Nine steps to cleaner data
Real world data is messy. Dirty. Untidy. Before you can even think about using all of those pretty techniques you learned in econometrics class, you need to clean up the data. Here is my nine step approach.
The world wants more US government debt. The US Treasury should supply it.
This fascinating story came out during the psychodrama of the US debt ceiling: U.S. Treasury debt prices soared on Friday on fears a U.S. default could trigger a shortage of Treasuries and even push the world's largest economy back into recession. On the face of it, this makes no sense. The market's reaction to a […]
Bike banks
Bear with me on this one. I'm trying to get my head straight on money and banking, by thinking weird thoughts. Suppose, just suppose, that (for some unknown reason) the only asset that banks liked owning was bicycles. They refused to own any other sort of asset, except, of course, central bank currency and reserves […]
My answers to Steven Landsburg’s two questions
Steven Landsburg asks two questions, in two related blog posts. I'm going to give my answers, taking the two questions in reverse order.
The Long Hand of Medieval Economic Thought…
In the current Ontario election campaign, both the Ontario Conservatives and the NDP have put in their platforms pledges to remove the HST from home hydro bills and home heating. It is argued that these items are not luxuries and that the HST has made life less affordable for families. The NDP goes a step […]
Why would private-sector firms make their forecasts public?
Suppose you had invested a certain amount of resources into researching the geology of Northern Quebec and had identified a region where there was a near-certainty of finding gold. Would you tell everyone? Or would you keep your findings to yourself and quietly acquire the necessary mining rights? The Bank of Montreal released a report […]
Research Project for Economics Student(s)
I don't have a comparative advantage in doing this, so why not see if I can find someone who does? If you are interested in Canadian monetary policy, and have basic econometric skills, you should be able to do this. And the answer you come up with might be interesting.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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