Archive for the ‘the dismal science’ Category

The puzzle:

Thursday, August 18th, 2005

Find these names – then read whats left.

Allais, Arrow, Becker, Buchanan, Coase, Debreu, Fogel, Friedman, Frisch, Haavelmo, Harsanyi, Heckman, Hicks, Kantorovich, Klein, Koopmans, Kuznets, Leontief, Lewis, Lucas, Markowitz, McFadden, Meade, Merton, Miller, Mirrlees, Modigliani, Mundell, Myrdal, Nash, North, Ohlin, Samuelson, Scholes, Schultz, Selten, Sen, Sharpe, Simon, Solow, Stigler, Stone, Tinbergen, Tobin, Vickrey,Von Hayek

relative income and happiness

Monday, August 15th, 2005

The latest coming from the field of happiness economics is saying relative income does make a difference in the overall levels of satisfaction in the long term (lifetime) view. For years I have been arguing that poverty is a relative issue. We have poor in the United States that are considerably better off than say the poor in Africa/South America/Latin America/Asia/Middle East if you look at the bundle of goods/services available to them. Even with adjustments like PPP, the comparisons are misinformative as they rarely take into account psycological effects which can be just as much as a trap as poor growth.

Although I’m no fan of the happiness index, these results shouldn’t be too suprising. If what you encounter on a daily/weekly/monthly basis is your neighborhood of experience, then obviously it would only really matter where you sat in relation to that environment.

Our big fat deficit

Monday, June 14th, 2004

We love our stuff! Dollar rally reverses on ‘alarming’ deficit

Broken Promises…

Wednesday, January 7th, 2004

Joesph Stiglitz looks at NAFTA for the New York Times. I don’t agree with all of it, but his insight is thoughtful. (yes yes, a tautology)

The Broken Promise of Nafta
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

Published: January 6, 2004

The celebrations of Nafta’s 10th anniversary are far more muted than those involved in its creation might have hoped. In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement has failed to fulfill the most dire warnings of its opponents and the most fervent expectations of its supporters. In Mexico, however, the treaty remains controversial and even harmful — as do America’s efforts to liberalize trade throughout the hemisphere.
(more…)

Down not Up

Friday, January 2nd, 2004

The Economic Policy Institute points out that while real GDP grew well over 3% for the second half of 2003, real wages didn’t grow at all.