Social anthropologist David Graeber claims that barter economies never operate the way that economists assume.
James Kahn and Robert Rich worry that the U.S. has entered a phase of weak productivity growth.
Matt O’Brien
(hat tip: Mark Thoma) wonders why Republicans have become so hostile towards the Federal Reserve.
Hal Cole and Lee Ohanian debate Paul Krugman on the recovery from the Great Depression.
I’ve just finished a new research paper with my former student (and now University of Chicago Professor) Cynthia Wu. In our new paper, we study how increased purchases of crude oil futures contracts by financial investors may have affected the prices on those contracts.
In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, gave his explanation of what’s wrong with peak oil. Here’s why I don’t find his analysis altogether convincing.
A vision of what American economic growth over the next decade could look like might also help us address our immediate economic problems.
Brad DeLong and
Tyler Cowen point to an interesting exchange in the Financial Times.
Today Econbrowser is pleased to feature a guest post from Johns Hopkins University Professor Jonathan Wright, in which he proposes an option for economic stimulus by the Federal Reserve.
Swiss National Bank announces it will buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities to achieve a target exchange rate. That’s quantitative easing with real meat on it.
Jim Brown on the importance of immediately opening up Alaska to more oil exploration and development.
Felix Salmon on why it’s depressing to see S&P giving AAA rating to a new security structured from subprime loans.
Felix Salmon again on how to solve the problems with the U.S. Post Office.
K.W. Regan on IBM’s Jeopardy champion (hat tip: Tyler Cowen).
Justin Wolfers reflects on his time in Washington DC (hat tip again to Tyler Cowen).
Journal of Statistical Software on estimating state-space models.
The economic data arriving during the last week have been deeply discouraging, though are slightly less grim than some may have been concluding.
An exchange I had last week with Econbrowser reader (and world-renowned scholar) Simon van Norden may be of interest to broader readers, so I lift it here from the comments: