Inomics: Top Economics Blogs – April 2021

From Inomics:

1. Random Observations for Students of Economics

2. Macro Musings Blog

3. Mainly Macro

4. Confessions of a Supply Side Liberal

5. Marginal Revolution

6. Conversable Economist

7. Naked Capitalism

8. Econbrowser

10. Econlib

12. The Enlightened Economist

13. Paul Krugman

16. Economonitor

17. Thoughts on Economics

18. The Undercover Economist

19. Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

20. Vox EU

21. Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

22. Lars P. Syll

(I edited out the inactive blogs)

An assessment of diversity in the top listing here, and here. Some thoughts on motivations for blogging during the golden age of economic blogs here.

 

22 thoughts on “Inomics: Top Economics Blogs – April 2021

  1. pgl

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/liz-cheney-sees-cratering-support-in-house-gop-as-kevin-mccarthy-says-she-isnt-carrying-out-the-message/ar-BB1glnBu?ocid=uxbndlbing

    Liz Cheney is not carrying our message according to Kevin McCarthy? What message is that Kevin?

    Look – she is the daughter of the most corrupt VP ever (even worse than Agnew). Dick Cheney as CEO of Halliburton milked the defense procurement rules he established as Sec. of Defense. He lied about his own accounting to his own shareholders. He set up an energy plan that lied the pockets of big oil. He lied to get us to attack Iraq in 2003. And then this traitor outed a valuable CIA team because its head was married to Joe Wilson.

    Liz Cheney is not better. But she has no illusions about how Donald Trump is a racist wannabe dictator that tried to destroy our republic. So is the message Kevin wants to put forward more racism and a return of King Donald I?

  2. pgl

    Congrats on being #8 on this list – should have been ranked higher. But this?

    “Economics bloggers vary widely from individual students and professors sharing their thoughts on the state of the profession, to blogging superstars like Greg Mankiw, Paul Krugman, John Cochrane and Tyler Cowen, whose analyses are backed by years of experience and a deep knowledge of the field.”

    Three right wingers and Krugman. We miss Thoma and Brad Delong’s blog has become a bit difficult to navigate.

    1. Dr. Dysmalist

      I agree, 8th is too low. Congratulations, Menzie and Jim, on making the list even if you’re still underappreciated.

      Unless John Cochrane has another blog besides The Grumpy Economist, which I don’t see listed, I don’t understand why they mentioned him by name. He has a history of flat-out not understanding the economics of the labor market (or did up until the time I stopped reading him) because he refuses to examine it with anything but a perfectly competitive model that has all the complexity of Econ 101. I don’t need to read a blog for an Econ 101 treatment of it; there are hundreds of Principles textbooks available, with better writing to boot. He was also very rigid in how he looked at every other topic. To me, his blog was a very thin slice of economic analysis smothered in about a gallon of right-wing polemics ‘gravy.’

      I’m glad to see Simon Wren-Lewis’s Mainly Macro made the list. I enjoy it despite it being, understandably, strongly oriented toward the UK and Europe, though I wish he posted more often. He had a post yesterday using OECD data to refute the existence of a trade-off between beating Covid and economic recovery. No surprise, The Usual Suspects (h/t PGL) are still wrong. IIRC, I learned of Mainly Macro from Krugman’s blog years ago.

      I also agree about Delong’s blog; sometimes it’s hard to find things there, and it’s more difficult to read than it was even a couple years ago. Even the class notes he posts have become, well, more idiosyncratic. Sometimes I pity his students. It makes me appreciate even more the unfailingly clear exposition here.

  3. ltr

    https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/how-most-of-west-got-pandemic-so-badly.html

    May 4, 2021

    How most of the West got the pandemic so badly wrong?

    It takes a lot to shock me nowadays, but the failure of most OECD countries over this pandemic I do find shocking. Not in the case of the UK under Johnson, the US under Trump, Brazil under Bolsonaro or India under Modi, as the reasons for their failures are all too obvious. After all Johnson had the idea before the pandemic that the UK should be the one country to opt out of restricting the economy to save lives, and that this would give the UK some big global economic advantage. Only when the implied National Health Sservice chaos was explained to him did he change his mind. What I find shocking is the failure of mainland Europe almost without exception

    A few countries did completely understand what they needed to do, which was to follow an elimination strategy. If you are still not convinced of the wisdom of this strategy, a recent article * in the Lancet should help. It compares the small number of OECD countries (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Iceland and Japan) that did undertake an elimination strategy (sometimes called zero-COVID) with most of the other OECD countries that did not. Here is the first chart from that study:

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fn_lLSbZuU0/YJAAvlUkDpI/AAAAAAAAEgc/GUKrNn_hlhEOK4MuLP_vSeRrW49llUcDwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h264/Elimination%2Bis%2Bbetter%2BDeaths.JPG

    Quite simply the elimination strategy is infinitely better at avoiding COVID deaths. It is infinitely better at avoiding cases of long-COVID. It is also better for the economy as the chart below from that study shows (the red line represents the elimination countries):

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DXqHm1ytMis/YJAA-IWCo5I/AAAAAAAAEgg/cjRY60jcI_YaSDS0lKsd1dej8Kl674YqQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h281/Elimination%2Bis%2Bbetter%2Beconomy.JPG

    Elimination countries saw a smaller fall in GDP, and a faster recovery at the end of 2020 and so far in 2021. The big lie perpetuated in the majority of OECD countries that failed to go for elimination is that there was a health/economy trade-off. As this table shows that is not true, and as I argued quite soon after the pandemic hit we knew it was not true. The reason it is not true is very simple: if you fail to lockdown hard and early to eliminate the virus, it will carry on growing exponentially either forcing a much longer and stricter lockdown later on and/or people will just stay at home anyway which will have a huge impact on the economy. This is shown clearly in the final chart from the Lancet article:

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C6DLcEN5dNo/YJABFEpGiFI/AAAAAAAAEgo/OWiXcvKD_pYubBuylYcZj5U9r5zMGiiSwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h271/Elimination%2Bis%2Bbetter%2Blockdowns.JPG

    ….

    * https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00978-8/fulltext

    — Simon Wren-Lewis

  4. Moses Herzog

    Got some thoughts here, but the bottom line is I don’t agree with either some of those included or with the rankings. And I’m not up for quarreling about it. Blogs either exist or they don’t. They’re either read or they’re not. I can think of one blog that certainly doesn’t deserve to be on the list and wasn’t, so I guess that’s “good”?? I guess if a failed out vet of Goldman Sachs wants to pretend she’s “pro-Labor” and can farm out the work of writing about May Day she knows who to call.

    Should I ask (as if I care) what happened to AngryBear??

    1. Barkley Rosser

      For what it is worth there is a list of the top 100 economics blogs that comes out once a year, usually in the fall. Last time it came out both Angry Bear and Econospeak were on it, although clearly neither is in the top 22 according to this list.

      1. Dr. Dysmalist

        I don’t read Angry Bear as often now as I used to. Nothing against them, just a matter of limited time. I am reading Econospeak again, about as often as I used to (prior to the last couple years). Keep up the good work, guys. You may not have made this list but you’re in my top five. That and $5 might get you a beverage at Starbucks.

      2. Moses Herzog

        @ Barkley Rosser
        I’ve got a sincere question for you (or others who may by happenstance know). And you know I really desire to know something when I ask you because it totally nauseates me to ask you anything. Do you remember Bruce Bartlett having a blog he ran with about 4-5 other guys where they focused near exclusively on government budget issues, if that disbanded and why?? And there used to be another one I really really liked (more than Bartlett’s site, but Bartlett’s was decent) that James Kwak used to quote, and it was run (solo writing) by a former semi-high ranking treasury official, and I THINK he wrote pseudonym. I thought he was a really great writer with salient points about Treasury and economics, the blog had titles in a pretty blue (like Florida Gators kind of blue) and a very light shade of blue background. I lost track of that site and I kinda miss it. Does anyone remember this blog?? Kwak would quote it, off and on, and I really thought it was underrated.

        I suppose if the “blog roll” is still on archived pages of Baseline Scenario and can find that on Kwak’s old bloglist, but I’m too lazy right this moment.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          Moses,

          I do not know what happened to Bruce’s blog. I had him in to speak at JMU several years ago. I follow him on Facebook. Bruce definitely has a unique perspective on things.

          The list I referred to is intelligenteconomist.com/economicsblogs .

          1. Barkley Rosser

            Thanks, Menzie. I have avoided twitter, which I know is where the action supposedly is now. But I am a notorious dinosaur, even when I am not completely the forbidden s word, :-).

          2. Moses Herzog

            OK, you bunch-uh damned meanies made me look it up. It wasn’t anonymous, I had remembered that wrong apparently. The dude’s name was/is Norman Carleton, the blog’s name was “Washington Outside”, which I’m guessing is inactive but I may double check in a few minutes. I really thought Carleton did a great job with that blog and it mildly irked me he didn’t get more attention for it.

            My scattered brain might have inserted Bartlett into the blog I am thinking of, not 100% sure. I am still curious what happened to it, ‘cuz there were about 4 semi-respected guys that ran it, and I thought it was pretty well done, that one is going to be harder to track down because I don’t remember any blog rolls that was on, and as good as the content was it was a relatively low traffic website.

            I appreciate the replies anyway. Thanks

          3. Moses Herzog

            DAMN that’s annoying. You change computers or RSS readers or it’s always something. Lost in the ether. Oh well, they probably gave it up anyway. I just thought it had some promise at the time. In the end you can probably find just as good a sources elsewhere. Including CBO. I don’t know, I’m just weird that way, I have affection to “off the beaten path” things, so it makes me wonder.

  5. Willie

    I haven’t had much to say lately – times have turned good again. But I still appreciate reading here. Nice to see that somebody more knowledgeable than this outhouse economist recognizes this blog.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Come on, get in here and throw a few more punches. We have to at least “outnumber” the usual suspects. Geez. What do we have to do with you Willie, throw in a raffle for a trip to Maui ??

      1. baffling

        an april 2021 list that includes inactive blogs raises my suspicion on the accuracy of the list. that said, econbrowser is one of the few economic blogs i follow, so kudos, you are doing something right!
        i remember reading a bartlett blog many years ago, and really liked it. i forgot what it was called, but i found it to be rather enlightening to how the conservative mind thought about things. quit following him much after that site shut down.
        i was surprised calculated risk was not on the list.

Comments are closed.