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from Peter Radford There I said it. There comes a point when we all have to stop banging our heads against the wall and just step back. Why, we ask in such moments, are we wasting our time? The wall is immoveable. It is indifferent to our efforts. It is solid. It has the appearance of permanence. It just won’t shift. So walk away. Do something else. In the case of economics go and study the economy instead. Too many people are wasting far too much time talking about economists as if they...

Trumped up expectations continue: I understand that by the numbers we aren’t currently considered in ‘recession’… So tell me he’s not a 7 or 8 year old juvenile in a 70 year old body? Play date…

I’m working a bit on (multi-factor) productivity at the moment. Part of this endeavour is taking a hard look at the details which, in my case, means taking a hard look at the productivity of cows (over the long haul). How did farmers, studbooks, veterinarians, (cooperative) factories and the government together manage to increase the productivity of cows? This is not just about the fat content of milk and yields per cow but also about quality improvement, which I operationalize as the...

We’ve gotten to another point where it’s hard for me to turn on the TV. I know this will have to change, but for now I’ll go back to one of my favorite topics, the fate of Ireland under austerity. As I suggested might happen, Ireland in its 2015-2016 immigration statistical year (May-April) was finally able to end its net emigration. According to the Central Statistical Office’s August report, 3100 more people came to Ireland than left during 2015-2016. This...

According to the most recent updates, the Oroville dam in California (the highest dam in the USA) might be on the point of collapsing (more precisely: the emergency overflow might collapse). According to Piet Dircke, an engineer of Arcadis (which since 2010 is involved with Californian watermanagement in the San Fransisco-Stockton-Sacramento triangle) there is one overriding reason why this might happen: failing maintenance maintenance. “The overflow should have been replaced 10 years...

Lina Kahn wrote an excellent totally Veblenian analysis of Amazone and anti-trust policies. Or: why Chicago style price based anti-trust analysis does not work and we have to look at the nature and structure of the brave new internet markets. “Journal of Economic Issues: 50th Anniversary Editor’s Choice Collection”. Until 10 march: ungated. Quite a bit about the nature and structure of markets. According to the ECB their QE policy was an astounding success. It got Southern European...

from Lars Syll There was an unusual degree of consensus among economists about what would happen if Britain voted for Brexit in the referendum on June 23 last year. The language used by the International Monetary Fund was typical: It expressed fears of an “abrupt reaction,” adding that this “may have already begun” … What happened instead was that Britain enjoyed the best growth of any major advanced economy in 2016 … Andy Haldane compared the pitfalls of economic prediction to the single...

by New Deal democrat Four measures of wage growth: prospects for further meaningful wage growth are dimming In the last several years, I have written a number of posts documenting the stagnation in average and median wages, followed by their improvement due to the steep decline in gas prices, for example here and here.  Since bottoming a year ago, gas prices have turned positive YoY, most recently up about 25%. Q4 2016 data on wages has been released, giving...

from David Ruccio It is extraordinary that the hegemonic economic theory in the world today—neoclassical economics—still lacks an adequate theory of the firm. It beggars belief both because neoclassical economics is the predominant theory that is taught to hundreds of thousands of students every year and used to make sense of the world and formulate policy in countless think thanks and government agencies and because the firm (or enterprise or corporation) is one of the central...