Tyler Cowen

Archive for Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen’s Expansive Definition of Externalities

Jeff Bezos can spend his money on himself, or he could give it to other people, so they could spend it on themselves. If he opts for the former, this is a clear-cut negative externality. Right? I think most economists would agree that that is a terrible argument. And yet, it seems to be what […]

The Nobel Laureates

For those of you who are pure econ geeks, here are some links: ==> As usual, check out Tyler Cowen, on Paul Romer (make sure you read the thing about Romer saying World Bank reports couldn’t use “and” more than 2.6% of the words) and William Nordhaus. ==> Also as usual, the person whose take is […]

Potpourri

==> An interesting proposal for a mechanism to improve debates. ==> A market solution to dealing with food waste. (I donated $10 for what it’s worth.) ==> FEE has made the collected works of Leonard Read available. He’s not just the author of “I, Pencil.” ==> Yikes! Russ Roberts catches Nancy Maclean with some creative […]

Economists Critique Trump’s Industrial Policy

On Thanksgiving, while most Americans were drinking beer and watching football, Donald Trump was hard at work keeping jobs in America!! When word came out that the company Carrier would in fact keep its operations in Indiana, rather than outsourcing, naturally the Trump forces claimed victory. But Justin Wolfers on Twitter was horrified: Every savvy […]

Tyler Cowen Joins Murphy in Sumner Bashing

[UPDATE at the end.] I really liked this recent post from Tyler, where he writes (all formatting in original): [Tyler Cowen quotation:] To get more specific yet, I am very much a fan of the ngdp rule approach to monetary policy, but I am uncomfortable with one strand in market monetarist thought. I worry when […]

Potpourri

==> This EconTalk with James Heckman is great. ==> John Goodman on Krugman on health care. ==> When I read this article about the Fed internally wondering whether it would be legal to charge negative interest rates, I imagined Bernanke like this. ==> I realize Bryan is ultimately disagreeing with Jerry Taylor, but I don’t […]

Potpourri

==> Tyler Cowen lobs a softball, and his clever critics in the comments throw their backs out they swing so hard. Very entertaining all around. ==> Gene Callahan at his blog has been posting some provocative things on the conventional view of how (natural) science progresses. ==> Surely anthropogenic climate change can be used to […]

Sumner, the Gold Standard, and the Great Depression

Scott Sumner’s new book on the Great Depression is coming out December 1. This is definitely something I will get and digest next year, as I’m swamped. I believe the blurbs when they say this will be a classic in the field. Among other things, Scott has (apparently) interspersed newspaper clippings and real-time financial market […]