Category Teaching
How to find a topic for an economics research essay
Calculus. Years of macro theory. Micro theory. Econometrics. Study the lecture notes, practice old exams, give the prof what he or she wants. It works. Until the day the prof says "Come up with an original research topic." Panic. "But no one's ever taught me how to be original."
The mathematics generation gap
Here's my theory: Some students struggle with economics because they do not fully understand the mathematical tools economists use. Profs do not know how their students were taught mathematics, what their students know, what their students don't know – and have no idea how to help their students bridge those gaps.
Reverse-engineering the MMT model
I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible, so it's accessible to second-year economics undergraduates. Many theoretical papers I read are full of impenetrable (to me) thickets of math. So I reverse-engineer the model. I try to figure out what the underlying model must be in order for the paper's conclusions to make sense. […]
Understanding the Keynesian Cross
(Almost) every economist has learned the Keynesian Cross. (Almost) nobody (IMHO) understands it. (Or, less provocatively, we all understand it differently). Here is my interpretation of the Keynesian Cross model. This is how I understand it. (This is inspired by Steve Williamson's post. I partly agree and partly disagree with Steve, but have decided to […]
Partial vs General equilibrium lumps of labour
Does an increase in productivity cause labour demand to increase or decrease? The answer to that question, and how we go about answering it, depends on whether we are talking about one small sector of the economy (partial equilibrium), or the economy as a whole (general equilibrium). (I was doing general equilibrium in my previous […]
Relative grade inflation, and Operation Birdhunt
Relative grade inflation is when one professor grades easier than another professor. Or when one department grades easier than another department. Operation Birdhunt was my attempt (OK, my colleague Marcel-Cristian Voia did the actual work) to do an econometric study of relative grade inflation across departments. Birdhunt was a failure, but a noble failure.
The Rise and Fall of Marxism?
My latest time wasting tech toy is Google Ngram Viewer. What's an ngram? A one word phrase, like "Marx" is a one-gram. "Karl Marx" is a two-gram. "K. Marx" is a three-gram (the period counts as a gram too). A phrase of indefinite length is an ngram. The Ngram viewer is based on Google Books. […]
Income Effects don’t really exist
I'm an expert on how non-economists think. That's because every year I try to teach 300 non-economists to think like economists. Non-economists think in terms of income effects. Economists think in terms of substitution effects. That's a stereotype that isn't 100% true, but it still contains a lot of truth. Here's how non-economists think:
Why blogging is hard
Imagine the following question on a PhD comprehensive exam: "Using a macroeconomic model with monopolistically competitive firms, explain how an increase in the expected future price level will cause an increase in the current price level. Also explain whether there is an effect on real output.
What we research, and what we believe
Suppose you believe in theory X. You want to do research in theory X. But all the interesting ideas in theory X have already been well-researched. You can't think of anything interesting and new to say about theory X. There might be some unresolved problems in theory X that need to be tackled. But you […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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