Tag Archives: Economics

Nationalekonomi — ett annat slags vetenskap En national-ekonomi, som antar, att dess föremål är en ren naturföreteelse eller blott ett tankeexperiment, är icke någon verklig national-ekonomi, utan ett annat slags vetenskap …      ‘National-ekonomien i stöpsleven,’ 1936     div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements...

I en tid när ljudrummet dränks i den kommersiella radions tyckmyckentrutade ordbajseri och fullständigt intetsägande pubertalflamsande tjafs har många av oss mer eller mindre gett upp. Radion, som en gång i tiden var en källa till både vederkvickelse och reflexion har degenererat till en postmodern ytlighetsavgud. Men det finns ljus i mörkret! I programmet Text och musik med Eric Schüldt — som sänds på söndagsförmiddagarna i P2 mellan klockan 11 och 12 — kan man lyssna på...

What is it that DSGE models — really — explain? Now it is “dynamic stochastic general equilibrium” (DSGE) models inspired by the Lucas critique that have failed to predict or even explain the Great Recession of 2007–2009. More precisely, the implicit “explanations” based on these models are that the recession, including the millions of net jobs lost, was primarily due to large negative shocks to both technology and willingness to work … So can the...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. It’s a puzzle why more people don’t use long-acting reversible contraceptives like IUDs or hormone shots. Berk Ozler reports on qualitative findings from Cameroon about why adolescent girls don’t seem interested in them. A new working paper suggests that how refugees fare economically in the U.S. is heavily dependent on at what age they arrive, perhaps because learning English is easier if they come earlier. The authors estimate...

By James Kwak A lot has been written recently about the direction of the Democratic Party. This is what I think. I have been a Democrat my entire life. Today, the Democratic Party matters more than ever because it is the only organization currently capable, at least theoretically, of preventing the Republicans from turning the United States into a fully-fledged banana republic, ruled by and for a handful of billionaire families and corporate chieftains, with a stagnant economy and...

By James Kwak A lot has been written recently about the direction of the Democratic Party. This is what I think. I have been a Democrat my entire life. Today, the Democratic Party matters more than ever because it is the only organization currently capable, at least theoretically, of preventing the Republicans from turning the United States into a fully-fledged banana republic, ruled by and for a handful of billionaire families and corporate chieftains, with a stagnant economy and...

So in what sense is this “dynamic stochastic general equilibrium” model firmly grounded in the principles of economic theory? I do not want to be misunderstood. Friends have reminded me that much of the effort of “modern macro” goes into the incorporation of important deviations from the Panglossian assumptions that underlie the simplistic application of the Ramsey model to positive macroeconomics. Research focuses on the implications of wage and price stickiness, gaps and...

The Rule of 72 A fast way of finding an approximative answer to what time it takes for e.g. a country’s income to double when the income grows at x percent per year. [embedded content] div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements

Harvard economist and George Bush advisor Greg Mankiw is one of many mainstream economists who has been appealing to the education variable to explain the rising inequality we have seen for the last 30 years in both the US and elsewhere in Western societies. Writes Mankiw: Even if the income gains are in the top 1 percent, why does that imply that the right story is not about education?… If indeed a year of schooling guaranteed you precisely a 10 percent increase in earnings,...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. I know this week for many of us it’s been hard to pay attention to what else has been going on in the world, what with the release of Stata 15 and all, but I’ll try to help with some stuff you may have missed: The World Bank’s Hedy Sladovich &Emanuela Galasso put together several very accessibly written one-paragraph summaries of recent findings on what works in early childhood development. It pairs nicely with this (mostly...