Tag Archives: Economics

[unable to retrieve full-text content]July 4th May Be Over, But The Fireworks Discussions Continue…: you: yay a day off let’s do some fireworks me, economist: OMG YOU’RE DOING FIREWORKS TOTALLY INEFFICIENTLY LET ME EXPLAIN

Why a monetary union cannot work without also being a political union Foreseeing the future is difficult. But sometimes it seems as though some people get it terribly right … Some day the nations of Europe may be ready to merge their national identities and create a new European Union – the United States of Europe. If and when they do, a European Government will take over all the functions which the Federal government now provides in the U.S., or in Canada...

My finest hour — Sweden’s euro referendum Fifteen years ago, Swedish citizens were asked if they wanted to join the eurozone. Of the 83 % registered voters who participated in the referendum close to 57 % cast their ballot for the ‘no’ side. The result of the referendum came as a total shock to the Swedish establishment. All major parties and business organizations were for the euro.But although the ‘yes’ side outspent the ‘no’ side ten to one, the ‘no’...

What the euro is all about There are still economists and politicians out there who think that the euro is the only future for Europe. However, there seem to be some rather basic facts about optimal currency areas that it would perhaps be wise to consider … The idea that the euro has “failed” is dangerously naive. The euro is doing exactly what its progenitor – and the wealthy 1%-ers who adopted it – predicted and planned for it to do. That progenitor is...

In a post on his blog, Paul Krugman argues that ‘Keynesian’ macroeconomics more than anything else “made economics the model-oriented field it has become.” In Krugman’s eyes, Keynes was a “pretty klutzy modeler,” and it was only thanks to Samuelson’s famous 45-degree diagram and Hicks’ IS-LM that things got into place. Although admitting that economists have a tendency to use ”excessive math” and “equate hard math with quality” he still vehemently defends — and always has —...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]So Do We Still Have Unions Now or No? Economics Can (Sort of) Answer That!: I guess it’s not teribly often that behavioral economics can be comforting rather than infuriating, so here you go…

[unable to retrieve full-text content]So Do We Still Have Unions Now or No? Economics Can (Sort of) Answer That!: I guess it’s not teribly often that behavioral economics can be comforting rather than infuriating, so here you go…

In an article published last week, Nicholas Gruen criticized the modern vogue of formalization in economics and took Paul Krugman as an example: He’s saying first that economists can’t see what isn’t in their models – whereas Hicks and pretty much every economist until the late twentieth century would have understood the need for careful and ongoing reconciliation of formal modelling and other sources of knowledge. More shockingly he’s saying that those who smell a rat at the...

The Conservative belief that there is some law of nature which prevents men from being employed, that it is “rash” to employ men, and that it is financially ‘sound’ to maintain a tenth of the population in idleness for an indefinite period, is crazily improbable – the sort of thing which no man could believe who had not had his head fuddled with nonsense for years and years … Our main task, therefore, will be to confirm the reader’s instinct that what seems sensible is...

To save Europe we have to abandon the euro The euro crisis is far from over. The tough austerity measures imposed in the eurozone has made economy after economy contract. And it has not only made things worse in the periphery countries, but also in countries like France and Germany. Alarming facts that should be taken seriously. The problems – created to a large extent by the euro – may not only endanger our economies, but also our democracy itself. How...