Congratulations!

Congratulations to the recent Nobel Prize winners in Economics! I know, it's not called that, but you know what I mean. There's a plethora of sources you can read to learn more about the winners.

Also, how about some other interesting articles? Monetary views, shale, the Great Depression, currency wars, and China/India/Brazilian growth. I don't really agree with that last one at all, but it's an interesting topic.

Enjoy!

Bachmann and the global economy, Zimbabwe constitutions, Google's money, and currency standards

Wait... what? Who is this Michele Bachmann person and why don't she understand what 'global economy' means? Politicians confuse me sometimes.

I imagine (best as I can) that things are scary, right now, in a country that needs a new constitution. Zimbabwe has been through a lot, and it's hard to trust those who are making the new document... I doubt they have a significant number of constitutional scholars working on it. Is it a liberal American bias to demand experts be involved in decision making?

I imagine that, upon doing further research, Google discovered that you can't throw money at a problem to fix it. Also, they have less power than they think they do (I'm looking at you, Google China).

While a monetary basket might be a better standard than the dollar, any attempt to make such a basket would be highly political rather than economic in nature. Countries will likely continue making their own decisions in determining currency standards rather than deferring their sovereignty. Though, I suppose, the international lending agencies could make it a requirement of aid.

Climate change, exchange rates, education, and new frontiers in economics

John Whitehead on climate change. The science hasn't been settled. Professor Whitehead doesn't go into this, but the consequences haven't been settled either.

Chavez is still trying to fix his economy, this time by playing with his fixed exchange rate. The blind lead the blind.

Tyler Cowen makes a partial list of over- and under-explored areas of economics. There are a lot of really interesting under-studied areas of economics.

Ed Glaeser looks at the link between GDP per capita and school enrollment in 1900. Education benefits seem to be very, very persistent.

Inflation, modern macro, monetary policy, and wages

Inflation is low, but still positive. There have been a number of forecasts saying that inflation will stay low for some time--seems like Austrian economists haven't been listening, though.

Robert Waldmann on modern macro.

Sumner on monetary policy. Could the Fed have acted better? Sumner is sometimes wordy, but always worth a read.

A bit on wages from the San Francisco Fed. Wage growth has been stagnating. Hopefully the rise in productivity will turn that around?

Trains, raising taxes, popping bubbles, and oil

Ed Glaeser doesn't like the high-speed train idea. We should focus on high-density areas, he says. What about focusing on major airline routes? Houston may not be particulary dense (though, we're getting our own rail system, eventually) but having a train option to get to Chicago or Boston relatively quickly would be a boon. Ryan Avent has more criticisms of Glaeser.

David Leonhardt talks about Club Wagner--to recognize that we need to raise taxes in a wealthy society.

Kevin Drum agrees with NY Fed Chairman William Dudley when he says that the Fed should take a more active role in recognizing and popping bubbles.

I always find it interesting when people try to make predictions about the future price of oil. One analysts thinks it'll go down to $55 soon, and hover there as a summertime low.

Graphs, Krugman/DeLong, inflation, and psychology

The recession in graphs. Felix Salmon points us to a bunch of graphs comparing the current recession to previous recessions. It's nice to see all of these together.

Krugman thinks about some notes from DeLong. I think they're interesting reads, though a bit rough.

The Fed is not concerned about falling inflation due to too much slack in production. This seems like a very AD/AS argument, and one that supports the idea of a prolonged recovery. I wonder what they think about the possibility of dipping into another recession.

There's an argument for psychology to be as accurate a science as medicine. I can't say I'm surprised, though I think psychology gets a bad rap. The story here is that psychological correlation coefficients were considered weak, when values of .3 were given, when this is actually a stronger value than "good" values in medical experimentation.

Excess demand for money, manufacturing news, grid parity, and Austrian BC theory

Nick Rowe on the importance of excess demand for money. This directly relates to what the Fed has been doing for quite some time to help the current crisis. Nick has had a lot of really good posts lately, it seems to me.

Mark Perry had optimistic news on the manufacturing front. It seems like these numbers will return to normal pretty soon, which makes me think that more focus will turn towards worsening labor numbers. Though, we're only six months or so away from the peak. Six months seems like a relatively short amount of time considering how long this had dragged out already.

John Quiggin reports that some solar power companies may be approaching grid parity, or the point where solar power is as cheap as conventional power.

Another good post from John Quiggin, he talks a little about the history of the Austrian Business Cycle, and why it isn't really taken seriously anymore by more empirical-minded economists.

Another take on the current situation

Scott Sumner, professor at Bentley University, now has added to the econoblogosphere, with his blog TheMoneyIllusion. As a monetary economist (which you could guess by the name, I'm sure), he has a variety of interesting posts, such as the role of rational expectations and GDP targeting.

NPR says that the recession is producing more art. Do we really need more angst?

Michael Mandel thinks that Health and Education will drive future GDP growth, thanks in part to Obama's budget plan.

A bit about the Federal Reserve

I thought this was pretty hilarious: This site answers your question, "Is This The Bottom?" I'm sure you can guess the answer.

On a more serious note, here are some interesting links to the tools of the Federal Reserve.

Lastly, an opinion piece at the American Mathematical Society covers how they think mathematical modeling of global problems, and their expected results. Somehow, this seems rather familiar... (h/t TVHE)