Mike Norman Economics

Diane Coyle reviews Robert Shiller's new book, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events, on the power of narrative, i.e., story. The most ancient from of knowledge transmission in social reproduction was myth. Mythos means "story" in Greek. Ancient cultures were characterized by teaching stories. This so-called primitive technology (concepts and numbers) still works to influence. Why? Because it is holistic, engaging the spectrum of human response. MMT...

Gerald Epstein has written a book critiquing neochartalism from a policy perspective. On an initial look he seems to attack the neochartalists on two things: their reluctance to talk about rise in tax rates and the international aspect — the limited applicability of their ideas to a few rich countries.... Good. The debate is engaged. Having written a book about MMT, the author has no excuse for not knowing the MMT literature in detail and citing it where appropriate for a scholar. I am...

Important. This is a view of neoliberal globalization in terms of the history of imperialism and its financial and economic analysis. It emerges as a natural extension of liberal capitalism in the Western liberal ideology that came to dominate the world scene after the colonial period. Ironically, the practical application of this world view took place in the transition of America from a British colony to the first Western liberal democracy constructed in terms of Enlightenment philosophy...

Economists have reacted negatively to the prospect of Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency. This column, part of the VoxEU debate on the future of digital money, outlines how if we focus exclusively on the efficiencies a currency like Libra brings to payment, there are arguments in its favour. A global digital currency provided by central banks may be preferable, but a private version would offer many of the same benefits.... The Libra operates on a fixed exchange rate with reference to floating...

Marty Weitzman passed away suddenly yesterday. He was on many people’s shortlist for the Nobel. His work is marked by high-theory applied to practical problems. The theory is always worked out in great generality and is difficult even for most economists. Weitzman wanted to be understood by more than a handful of theorists, however, and so he also went to great lengths to look for special cases or revealing metaphors. Thus, the typical Weitzman paper has a dense middle section of math but...

Pesky physicists. ?Jason Smith "converses" with Milton Friedman.Short, fun, and not wonkish.Information Transfer EconomicsMilton Friedman's Thermostat, reduxJason Smith

Lynn Parramore reviews Suprita Rajan's A Tale of Two Capitalisms, which is about the intersection of economics with anthropology and sociology and the distinction between homo economicus of economics and homo communis (aka homo socialis) of anthropology and sociology — and ethics. Ethos (ἦθος, ἔθος; plurals: ethe, ἤθη; ethea, ἤθεα) is a Greek word originally meaning "accustomed place" (as in ἤθεα ἵππων "the habitats of horses", Iliad 6.511, 15.268),[2] "custom, habit", equivalent to...

It is now clear that to most observers that the use of monetary policy to stimulate major changes in economic activity in either direction is fraught. Central bankers in many nations have been pulling all sorts of policy ‘rabbits’ out of the hat over the last decade or more and their targets have not moved as much or in many cases in the direction they had hoped. Not only has this shown up the lack of credibility of mainstream macroeconomics but it is now leading to a major shift in policy...

I wish I had thought of it as I'm quite good with my hands. It seems like a very rewarding business. I thought I was doing well with my trilbys, bowler, fedora, and fez hats with a waxed handlebar moustache. [embedded content]

Interesting from Taleb .... just sounds like a Roman Catholic flavor of your typical Liberal Art/Platonist methodology 101 to me...i.e. in figurative language "the broad gate" (Mat 7:13)   in any case still not appropriate for use in material endeavors...For those who (thankfully) don't know what Jesuitic casuistry is, see below.(BTW my father and grandfather were educated by Jesuits; it has been my dream ---for years -- to find a Jesuit casuist for a good Twitter fight)....