Economics

Archive for Economics

Proof That Krugman Doesn’t Read Mises.org

Well I really thought a few weeks ago I demonstrated that you need more than simple accounting to come up with Krugman’s constant assertions that debt reduction will lead to lower incomes. But Krugman writes today, in a post entitled “Death By Accounting Identity“: Martin Wolf has a somewhat despairing-sounding column this morning, in effect […]

Inside Baseball on GDP and Inventories

A while ago I dug into the mysterious world of GDP accounting and wrote an article (one of my personal favorites) showing the absurdities into which “inventory adjustments” could lead. On a related note, I sent the following email to some guys I work with about the recent revision to the 3rd quarter GDP figures: […]

A Dark Age of Welfare Economics

Paul Krugman, Nov. 22, 2011: In the first part of the paper, [Diamond and Saez] analyze the optimal tax rate on top earners. And they argue that this should be the rate that maximizes the revenue collected from these top earners — full stop. Why? Because if you’re trying to maximize any sort of aggregate […]

Kling for Kids

I am really hustling in my entrepreneurial capacities lately, so I haven’t had the luxury of commenting on the back-and-forth Arnold Kling is having with his critics on his view of economic “recalculation.” Specifically, the argument is whether we add anything to our discussion of recessions and recoveries if we talk about the need to […]

Landsburg vs. Murphy on the Supercommittee

Oh boy, strap on your seatbelts kids because Landsburg and I are going at it. You will never see such rapid-fire deployment of assumptions, rhetorical tricks, absurd scenarios, and kidney punches as when the two raconteurs from Rochester duke it out in the comments of his blog. (I was born and raised in Rochester, and […]

Krugman on Shaping Expectations

I’m not going to say this even qualifies as a “Kontradiction,” but it’s close. By now, every serious geeconosphere wonk should know that Paul Krugman’s recommendation to Japan back in the day, was that its central bank should credibly commit to future inflation. That would cause the public to expect a lower purchasing power of […]

Karl Smith’s Less-Than-Soothing Fed Exit Strategy

I truly enjoy reading Karl Smith’s posts over at Modeled Behavior. Karl might be second only to Steve Landsburg in terms of thinking about standard issues in novel ways. (For example, check out this post where Karl consciously walks headfirst into the liquidity trap, and becomes more powerful than Paul Krugman can possibly imagine.) So […]

The Battle Rages on at The Economist

Rob Bradley asked me to make you folks aware that he is currently running neck and neck at The Economist in a debate over government subsidies to renewable energy sources. I link, you decide.