Category Archives: links to my essays

Tradition or momentary reason?

This post is inspired by a lot of recent reading, too much to reference here. Some of it pertains to Sohrab Ahmari David French. But most of it pertains to Scott Alexander’s recent posts inspired by Joseph Henrich’s work. (Note … Continue reading

Posted in books and book reviews, culture, links to my essays | Tagged | 3 Comments

What I’m reading

Range, by David Epstein. You can listen to a Russ Roberts podcast with him here. The book argues for the virtues of cultivating talents in multiple areas. I find the main argument convincing. One of my rules for financial life … Continue reading

Posted in behavioral economics, books and book reviews, links to my essays | 6 Comments

What gets expensive and why

Eric Helland and Alex Tabarrok sort out the various proposed explanations. For example, concerning (lower) education, they write, no metric of school quality shows any improvement that would appear to justify a cost increase of more than five times. Improvements … Continue reading

Posted in disaggregating the economy, Growth Causes and Consequences, links to my essays | 11 Comments

Hiring miscalculations

Peter Capelli writes, The recruiting and hiring function has been eviscerated. Many U.S. companies—about 40%, according to research by Korn Ferry—have outsourced much if not all of the hiring process to “recruitment process outsourcers,” which in turn often use subcontractors, … Continue reading

Posted in business economics, links to my essays, Timothy Taylor is my Favorite Blogger | 7 Comments

Three opinions about monetary policy

1. Tyler Cowen cites a paper by three economists which argues that the lower bound for the interest rate does not matter. Cowen comments, “this evidence is the (current) final word, and I hope it will be heeded as such.” … Continue reading

Posted in links to my essays, Mark Thoma is Indispensable, Monetary Economics, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 9 Comments

Road to Sociology watch

Dylan Matthews writes that tomorrow belongs to Raj Chetty. Chetty has made his name as an empirical economist, working with a small army of colleagues and research assistants to try to get real-world findings with relevance to major political questions. … Continue reading

Posted in Economic education and methods, links to my essays, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 6 Comments

Alice Rivlin, 1931-2019

Timothy Taylor has a helpful obituary. Brookings has a useful intellectual bio. She was the first director of the Congressional Budget Office. She was a straight shooter and highly competent, and that is how the CBO is regarded to this … Continue reading

Posted in links to my essays, Timothy Taylor is my Favorite Blogger | Comments Off

My review of Tyler Cowen’s latest

I wrote, Much of Big Business musters arguments and evidence against the accusations critics articulate concerning the corporate sector. But to me, this is an exercise in Whack-a-Mole, where every time you knock down one canard against big business another … Continue reading

Posted in books and book reviews, links to my essays, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 3 Comments

Philosophy and economics

Diane Coyle writes, Yesterday, an undergraduate emailed me to ask for book recommendations about the overlap between economics and philosophy. I recommended: Amartya Sen The Idea of Justice Michael Sandel What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets Agnar … Continue reading

Posted in books and book reviews, Economic education and methods, links to my essays, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 15 Comments

Preston McAfee on big firms

He says, The thing that shocked me the most was how inefficient large firms can be. Sure, there is government waste, but it is commensurate with size and clarity of mission. In one sense, I already knew that large firms … Continue reading

Posted in business economics, links to my essays | 6 Comments