from Lars Syll Back in 1991, when yours truly earned his first PhD​ with a dissertation on decision making and rationality in social choice theory and game theory, I concluded that “repeatedly it seems as though mathematical tractability and elegance — rather than realism and relevance — have been the most applied guidelines for the behavioural assumptions being made. On a political and social level, ​it is doubtful if the methodological individualism, ahistoricity and formalism they are...

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Understanding Financial Crises

Before we moved to Rhode Island last year, I was familiar with Newport as the home of the Newport Jazz and Folk festivals. Indeed, we attended one afternoon of performances at the Newport Jazz Festival this summer. Newport is only an hour from our home in Rumford RI. Recently, I read in The New York Review of Books that Newport RI was once the epicenter of the North American African slave trade. This surprising (to me) news provoked me to read...

Angus Deaton: ‘The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’ When Angus Deaton arrived in the US four decades ago, he imagined he had something to say about economic inequality and how to tackle it that Americans might want to hear. Instead, the great economic minds of the time told him to shut up … As Deaton describes in his unsparing new book, Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, he soon realized he had run...

If you get a chance, wander over to Seeking Alpha and read New Deal democrat’s very thorough take on the economy. You can set up a fee, limited account there. AB Weekly Indicators for October 2 – 6 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While interest rates have continued to rise to multi-decade highs, shorter term indicators continue to chug right along, both on the producer and the...

A Jewish American Living in Berlin, Matt De Vlieger, “Not all civilians are equal: 3,803 Palestinians, 177 Israelis since 2008.” The concern for civilian lives appears to waver, leaning disproportionately towards one side. Spare me your war stories. This old Marine Sergeant does not care to hear them. The Gaza is six miles wide. It is a fish in a barrel shoot with either 105 or 155mm Howitzers. A 155mm round can go back and forth almost multiple...

‘Nobel Prize’ winner Claudia Goldin helps you get your econ papers published We do not instruct our students well in the art of crafting papers, possibly because there are so many idiosyncratic elements. Editing or refereeing manuscripts teaches us what distinguishes a well-crafted paper from an ordinary one. We should take on these chores not only because they are public services but also because they are the only means of learning how to write. Reading...

Medicare Advantage Overbilling Taxpayers by $140 Billion a Year, This is Enough to Wipe Out Medicare Premiums, Informed Comment, Juan Cole and Jake Johnson. AB‘s Joel sent me an Informed Comment article. I read the article and knew there was more to the issue than just overcharging the government by upcoding Medicare Advantage plan members. Merrill Goozner writes GoozNews and got the jump on this topic before me in March of this year. Catching up...

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such. Like this:Like Loading...