Paul Walker
Is the financial sector too large? - The Dismal Science
Jan 28, 2013 •
A question asked by Greg Mankiw over at his blog. He points us to two possible answers. This first of these is The Growth of Modern Finance by Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein. Their abstract reads: The U.S. financial services industry grew from...
Reasons for liking a carbon tax - The Dismal Science
Jan 25, 2013 •
This article from the National Journal argues in favour of a carbon tax: To paraphrase Ronald Reagan paraphrasing Will Rogers, some people around here never met a tax they didn’t dislike. Others have met just one: a carbon tax. A number of the nati...
The minimum wage-employment debate …. again - The Dismal Science
Jan 23, 2013 •
Debates about the economic effects and the merits of the minimum wage date back at least as far as the introduction of minimum wages. In a 2008 book "Minimum Wages" by David Neumark and William Wascher it is concluded that, "... [M]inimum wages reduce...
Measuring the knowledge economy - The Dismal Science
Jan 22, 2013
The problem noted in the previous post on how to measure productivity in the internet age is just one example of the problems with measuring most aspects of the economy in the, so-called, knowledge economy. This is a problem that I have written a litt...
Nine facts about top journals in economics - The Dismal Science
Jan 22, 2013 •
These nine facts will not be of any concern to most of you, but they will be very important for a small subset of you. So those in the subset take note. 'Publish or perish' has been the rule in academic economics since forever, but there is a widespre...
More blatant self promotion - The Dismal Science
Jan 21, 2013 •
I have made a few changes to my paper "The Past and Present of the Theory of the Firm". The new version is available at SSRN The abstract reads: In this survey we give a short overview of the way in which the theory of the firm has been formulated w...
Kidney exchange and market design - The Dismal Science
Jan 20, 2013 •
Recent Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth gives a brief summary of work on "Kidney Exchanges" in the NBER Reporter: Number 4, 2012. More than 90,000 patients are on the U.S. waiting list for a kidney transplant from a deceased donor, and only 11,000 or so ...
Aumann on Shapley and Roth - The Dismal Science
Jan 08, 2013 •
In the February 2013 Notices of the American Mathematical Society Robert Aumann writes on Shapley and Roth Awarded Nobel Prize in Economics (pdf). (HT: Market Design)
The decline of British industry - The Dismal Science
Jan 01, 2013 •
That the British car industry is not what it once was is obvious but you are left asking why it has collapsed so dramatically. Part of the answer may be found in the attitudes of the managers of British companies post World War two. In a short set of n...
EconTalk this week - The Dismal Science
Dec 17, 2012 •
Don Boudreaux of George Mason University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the work of F. A. Hayek, particularly his writings on philosophy and political economy. Boudreaux provides an audio annotated bibliography of Hayek's most important bo...