Author Archives: wciecon
Plastic and glass
It seems the Eurozone troubles are heating up again. Debt is like glass. If you hit it with a small shock it stays rigid. But if you hit it with a big shock it breaks. Equity is like plastic. If you hit it with a shock it bends. The bigger the shock the more it […]
The Basic Income: Go big, or go home
I used to blog fairly regularly about the Basic Income (aka Citizen's Income, aka Guaranteed Annual Income), but the passage of a decent interval of time, Kevin Milligan's recent Economy Lab columns ([1] , [2]) and Erin Anderssen's long article in Saturday's Globe and Mail gives me an excuse to revisit the issue and perhaps […]
Instrumentalism
It's amateur psychology hour. Sorry. In economics there are two reasons for doing something: because we enjoy it (taking a holiday at the beach); or because it is a means to an end that we enjoy (working to pay for the holiday at the beach). It's an instrumentalist perspective.
Public Enemy and public goods
Once upon a time, musicians made money by selling albums. Now that people download music, this strategy doesn't work well. But what is the alternative? In 2007, Radiohead thrilled fans and economists alike with a new approach to music distribution. They distributed their album In Rainbows electronically, allowing fans to pay any price they chose […]
Some thoughts on the Gauti Eggertsson & Paul Krugman paper
It's an interesting paper (pdf). It's a very standard New Keynesian macro model with one twist. It's a twist worth doing. There are two types of people: the impatient, who borrow from; the patient. And there's an exogenous limit to the debt the impatient are allowed to accumulate. It's a math model, of course. I'm […]
Why won’t she just take a taxi?
Three years ago my mother- and father-in-law decided to sell their car. They worked out that they would save enough on maintenance and insurance to pay for a taxi at least once a week. In three years, how many times has my mother-in-law taken a taxi? Excluding trips to the airport or train station – […]
But is it research?
At the back of every academic blogger's mind is a nagging question: does this count as research? A new paper by Glen Ellison (ungated here) argues that the internet is changing the way that top academics publish: "More top economists may realize that the publication hassles they have been enduring are not necessary." Economists at […]
How the quest for ratings distorts research
Imagine yourself in the position of a senior university administrator. Your university employs hundreds of academics, all of whom claim that their research is of vital, earth-shattering import. You have neither the time nor the expertise to evaluate the quality of the work done by individual faculty members. How do you sort out the good […]
Four questions for the Bank of Canada
Three of those questions are questions the Bank of Canada is asking itself (and anyone else who cares to listen). I want to add a fourth. The Bank held a workshop yesterday. Stephen and I attended, along with a few dozen other Canadian economists. It was about the Bank's inflation targeting framework, which comes up […]
Out-sourcing your own job
The Radio-Canada news report sounded like an item from The Onion: Postal worker contracts out his own job. In economic terms, it makes perfect sense for a letter carrier to sub-contract. Say Postman Paul is earning $150 after tax per day for delivering the mail, but can make more money working in construction. (Before taxes, […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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