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In the 1920s and early 30s, John Maynard Keynes was embroiled in a controversy with the ‘austerians’ of his time, who believed that balancing the government budget, even in a time of economic volatility and decline and financial fragility, was necessary to restore ‘investor confidence’ and therefore provide stability. Keynes was horrified by the idea. Zachary Carter’s brilliant biography notes that Keynes felt a package of government spending cuts and tax increases would be ‘both futile...

10-15 years ago, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) were a higher education fad. Universities could dispense with physical (lecture halls, heating, cooling, cleaning, security) and administrative (room scheduling) costs and just teach students online. During this period, I was associate dean for research and the Dean of our medical school brought up the suggestion that we could replace our first year medical school curriculum with MOOCs. Never mind...

How can we respond to a world of cascading disasters? Over the past past few years we’ve had to deal with all sorts of new or resurgent evils, including climate catastrophe, Covid and the global assault on democracy. That’s been made harder by the fact that our political leaders (and plenty of their supporters) have either failed to respond effectively, or have actively promoted these evils. Yet there’s nothing positive about giving in to despair, either politically or personally....

I received an e-mail from Kaiser Permanente with a link to click. I clicked the link and learned that Kaiser Permanente (KP) has libeled me. Below see a definite assertion of fact. KP definitely asserts that I have ignored my legal obligations (the required DPT vaccination — I will not present proof on this point here — might as well admit it). KP’s accusation is false. KP did not perform due or any diligence. I assert that KP’s conduct is a...

from Lars Syll Debating econometrics and its shortcomings yours truly often gets the response from econometricians that “ok, maybe econometrics isn’t perfect, but you have to admit that it is a great technique for empirical testing of economic hypotheses.” But is econometrics — really — such a great testing instrument? Econometrics is supposed to be able to test economic theories. But to serve as a testing device you have to make many assumptions, many of which themselves cannot be tested...

Με την συμπλήρωση 40ημερών από την εκδημία του πολυαγαπημένου μας Δημήτριου Μαυρουδέα θα τελεστεί μνημόσυνο την Κυριακή 22/1/2023, 12:00 στο Α΄ Νεκροταφείο Αθηνών. Advertisement Ρυθμίσεις απορρήτου

As usual, 26 January has been marked by protests, denunciations of those protests, and further iterations. Even apart from the fact that it marks an invasion, the foundation of a colony that later became one of Australia’s states isn’t much of a basis for a national day. A logical choice would be the day our Federation came into force. Unfortunately for this idea, our Founders chose 1 Jan 1901. The first day of the 20th century[1] must have seemed like an auspicious choice for a...

from Dean Baker I was happy to see this segment of Ezra Klein’s show (hosted by Rogé Karma) which featured an interview with Columbia University Law Professor Katharina Pistor. Pistor is the author of The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality. I’ve not yet read the book, but got the gist from the interview. Pistor is arguing that we have structured the market in ways that generate enormous inequality. In the interview, she presents several ways in which the law has...

Abstract After 40 years of neoliberalism, even governments believe that they are inefficient when compared to the private sector. And economics, in its swing to the right, reinforces this view. The philosophy behind public expenditure for social purposes and the criteria for judging such projects has not been a subject for public debate until recently. In particular, industrial policy was very simple: leave it to the private sector to allocate resources as the market prompts. In...

“Open Thread January 6, 2023,” Angry Bear, angry bear blog