Economics

Archive for Economics

How Much Faith Should We Put in Keynesian Models?

This is the first of a two-part series in which I join Jim Manzi’s search for justification for Keynesian models. For what it’s worth, one of the copy editors at Mises told me, “This one made me laugh a lot.”

Steve Landsburg: The Man, the Myth, the Legend

I have been so busy that I forgot to name-drop that during my recent trip to Rochester, I had a candlelit dinner (not of our request) with Steve Landsburg in the hotel restaurant. One of the most interesting points of discussion (which he gave me permission to mention) was that he had gone through not […]

Orszag Looking Out For Numero Uno

James Fallows wants Orszag to say it ain’t so: Peter Orszag, until recently the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Barack Obama, to join Citibank in a senior position. Exactly how much it will pay is not clear, but informed guesses are several million dollars per year. Citibank, of course, was one […]

The Reality of the Tax Deal

You won’t believe it, but today at Mises.org I have unqualified praise for two GMU economists, and I illustrate my arguments with a series of curves. (Thanks to Kathy White for creating them.) I may be subject to a boycott in the near future; we’ll see. Here’s the conclusion: Most of the pundits — let […]

Is Scott Sumner Working on His Own Documentary?

Sometimes I really think Scott Sumner is the Deep Throat to my Bob Woodward. He leaves really obvious clues on his blog, but because of his prestigious position at Bentley he can’t connect all the dots. Yet he knows that I am out here, reading, and won’t let him down. For example, Sumner starts off […]

Murphy Triple Play

* I wrote this a while ago, but it slipped through the cracks. The people at Campaign for Liberty wanted me to rough up Greg Ip and his “myths” about QE, which I was only too happy to do. (Incidentally, I know some readers thought I had been unfair to Ip when I blogged about […]

Economists Are Funny, Episode VI

Jim Manzi continues his discussion with economist Karl Smith. Manzi has repeatedly asked Smith to explain why Manzi should have any faith in economists’ claims that fiscal/monetary stimulus will boost economic growth etc. I am going to do a Mises.org on this, but for now I just want to excerpt from what Smith himself describes […]

John Carney: “We’re All Austrians Now”

I have been so busy I haven’t had time to lavish praise on John Carney, who has been doing his part to bring Austrian business cycle theory to the table at CNBC. For example, a few weeks ago he ran this interesting piece. Here’s the intriguing intro: It’s no accident that Austrian economics is newly […]