The economics blogosphere and now the mainstream financial press are full of discussion about the flaws in widely cited research done by Professors Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart. These authors produced an excellent and path-breaking book This Time Is Different which … Continued
A New York Times article recently reported data from Rosenblatt Securities showing that the percentage of total US stock trading done “off-exchange” has risen from about 15% in 2008 to over 35% in 2013 and occasionally as high as 40%. What … Continued
I’ve written before about the remarkable speed at which non-conventional oil and gas, especially shale gas, are being discovered and (at least in the US) exploited. The effect of this on world energy markets is likely to be good for … Continued
I think Karl Marx somewhere said that common sense was a poor guide to understanding the social world. If he actually said this (I can’t find a source) he meant it from the perspective of someone trying to show that … Continued
Despite persistently low inflation since the global financial crisis, there are plenty of commentators and investors who predict inflation will rise. They base this on i) the huge increase in central bank balance sheets arising from unconventional monetary policy “quantitative … Continued
LinkedIn is a very useful tool which I’ve used for several years. It has become essential for job seekers and for finding out more about people that you do business with. Since you can use most of the services free … Continued
Experiments are the normal way in which science advances. You investigate whether A causes B and by how much, controlling for all of the other things that might make B happen. In the laboratory this is relatively easy. But in … Continued
It might seem straightforward to measure how much debt a government has. But it’s not that simple. First, we have to decide what is “debt”. We should obviously include debt securities and bank loans. But what about pension and insurance … Continued
Since the definition of poverty is not having enough money, it might seem obvious that giving money to poor people is a good way to help them. But cash transfers, as they are known in the aid and development world, … Continued
I make the point in classroom discussions of the US fiscal outlook that, simplifying only a little, the problem of US federal spending reduces to the problem of the US health care system. All rich countries face an increase in … Continued
Every country is unique but some are more unique than others. Japan, though quite obviously not located in the geographic western hemisphere, is part of “the west” as a group of rich democracies with advanced economies. Its inclusion is not … Continued
I’ve mentioned before the long running argument about whether The Wizard of Oz is in fact an allegory of the gold standard. Those who think it is point to the book having being written during the arguments about bimetallism (whether … Continued
A key feature of macroeconomic analysis is the relationship between a country’s savings and investment rates. Savings represent income that is not consumed. Investment means spending on assets that will last for some period of time, such as factories, houses, … Continued
Finance theory is rooted in the conventional neoclassical economics assumptions of how rational people approach risk. It assumes that people can mostly be thought of as having consistent preferences over outcomes, evaluated according to the probability of their happening. Rationality, … Continued
The Financial Times reported yesterday that Germany was making an audit (*) of its gold holdings, much of which are abroad. The newspaper Suddeutsche apparentlu estimates that about 1,500 tonnes of the total 3,400 tonnes of German owned gold are … Continued