|Peter Boettke|
The late great Milton Friedman declared that "inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomena." He said this at a critical time in our policy history, and his work on the history and theory of monetary mischief persuaded the bulk of his professional peers, policy makers, and the general [...]
So the American Economic Association has produced the "Economists Calendar" in celebration of the 125th Anniversary of it founding.
Many readers of this blog (both those who consider themselves critics and those who consider themselves friends) have often asserted three things: (1) Austrian economists are ignored in the profession; [...]
One of my teachers, Kevin Grier, voices concerns with the monetary policies that quantitative easing implies --- including the Fed's ability to credibly commit to the monetary policy rules advocated. As Kevin says in the comments: "The idea that too tight of monetary policy led to or worsened [...]
Roger Koppl has an interesting post on the future of macroeconomics.
I agree with much of what Roger says. But I don't consider this trend progress in economic science. Instead, I think we have moved far away from the analytical agenda of coordination macroeconomics (Hayek to Leijonhufvud) and the [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Alex Tabarrok discusses Stephen Landsberg's chapter on common knowledge in The Big Questions. I haven't read it yet, but I am sure Alex's description is accurate.
What concerns me is not so much Landsberg restating of the Aumann proposition on agreement, but what role the common knowledge [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Today is Sunday in the Fall, and in the US that means professional football from noon until midnight will be watched in millions of households across the country. And in the fall throughout the country one can watch HS football on Friday nights, and college football on Saturdays. So [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Adam Martin discusses the lies that the 19th century poets taught, and the truth that economists countered with.
Those re-entering the labor market are often finding that they have to accept a serious cut in their wages --- up to 40% less in some instances. Is this the market adjusting to clean-out the previous mistakes, or is this additional evidence in favor of the deflationary spiral?
Two claims are often made about praxeology. First, that it represents the method of Austrian economics. Second, that it represents not anything new with Mises, but the continuation of how the great economists in the past had in fact always done economics. Which claim is true?
On another matter, Mises [...]
|Peter Boettke|
That is the title of a recent talk by Anthony Evans, which is now available on video.
laconf09, Anthony Evans: "banking, Honest Money and the Free Market" from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.
[...]|Peter Boettke|
November 9th 1989 --- forgive me if I still get choked up about it 20 years later -- is a critical date in modern history whose significance should never be forgotten. Those of us who believe strongly in the freedom of the individual and in the power of voluntary [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Greg Ransom linked to his discussion at Taking Hayek Seriously of this new paper in our comments, but the idea behind the paper might be too important to be left to the comments.
What do you think of the claim that rational expectations macroeconomics was the intellectual descendants of [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The insightful and always intellectual curious and amazingly energetic Anthony Evans provides this link from FT.com.
[...]|Peter Boettke|
Paul Krugman provides his take on the Beckworth graph showing the collapse of nominal spending and relates it to his 1998 work on Japan. The upshot, monetary policy will not produce the desired effect in our current situation. Scott Sumner responds and continues to push his position [...]
|Peter Boettke|
James Buchanan was my teacher. I learned much from him in and out of the classroom during my student days. But I have learned far more from him in the years since. I turn to his works constantly for not only insight on how to tackle problems in economics [...]
|Peter Boettke|
One of the great joys of teaching at GMU is the constant flow of interesting students that walk through our halls. Some of these graduates have moved on to teach at U Conn, UVA, U of Penn, Carnegie Mellon, UC Santa Cruz, Suffolk, WVU, U of Chicago, and of course [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Richard Wagner's new book reflecting his effort at reconstruction of the main ideas of neo-Mengerian economics and its implications for contemporary social science will be published in early 2010. Wagner's last book Fiscal Sociology and the Theory of Public Finance (Edward Elgar, 2007) represented [...]
When I try to make the distinction between knowledge and information to my students I often use the internet as an example. There is a ton of information available, I argue, but very little knowledge. The transformation of information into knowledge requires things like interpretation and judgement.
Bottom-line, there is [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook, continues to impress scholars and academic commentators. The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses his book and its contribution in the November 1st edition.
[...]Back in 1985, Dave Prychitko and I attended a small gathering of economists and public policy intellectuals at the CATO Institute awaiting the arrival of Mario Rizzo and Gerald O'Driscoll's The Economics of Time and Ignorance, which was actually held up in customs. When [...]
Last week, Tyler Cowen linked to this discussion by UCLA economic historian Matthew Kahn on why progress in economics is so difficult. There are two claims made in Kahn's post that are particularly relevant to readers of this blog. First, there is the claim that economics is inherently [...]
Jeopardy had a category on economists the other day.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry: the contestants couldn’t even offer an answer to 3 out of 4 of them.
Peter Boettke posted the video.
Technorati Tags: jeopardy,economist [...]|Peter Boettke|
Tyler Cowen today predicts the future of the economics profession. What do you think? And if he is right, what does that mean for those of us who believe good economics is grounded in humanly rational choice theory and institutional analysis? Does the future of good economics lay [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The other night Jeopardy had economists as a category. The looks on the participants faces are priceless. I guess we have our work cut out for us in terms of cultural recognition.
HT: Jeremy Horpedahl and Will Luther.
John Stossel writing at Townhall.com stresses how free individuals can solve problems even in the most difficult situations. In making his argument, he relies on the work of Elinor Ostrom on common-pool resources. He also references the interview with Lin and Vincent that serves as the post-script to [...]
George Soros can spend his money any way he pleases. He earned it. But he insists that economic theory and policy must be rethought. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, and I also agree with him that we need to re-examine economic theory and public policy. His [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Tyler links today to this interesting discussion of what we have learned from 85 years of research on what are the best predictors of success in choosing new hires in the workplace. General intelligence is #1 predictor, schooling and age are at the bottom. However, an interesting predictor is [...]
In December 2009, Ronald Coase will celebrate his 99th birthday. Amazing. But this month, we also celebrate the 50th anniversary of his brilliant article on the Federal Communications Commission published in Vol. 2 of the Journal of Law and Economics in October 1959.
Readers of this blog should concentrate their [...]
Late last night I stayed up talking with Will Wilkinson about blogging and the future of the intellectual culture that we live in. At one point, Will said that listening to me all he hears is "I don't like the music those young kids are playing. You just [...]
