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More Crude Empirical Testing...
So, I have some weird results. The summary: I can't find a theory of interest rates that actually "works ( Read more... ) -
Liquidity Preference Theory of Interest: a Crude Empirical Test
One of the highlights of Keynes's General Theory was his "Liquidity Preference Theory of Interest". More or less, Keynes argued that it's the supply of and demand for money that determine interest rates ( Read more... ) -
Open Letter to College Students
Dear College Students,
Welcome! This may be your first year on campus - this may be your last. But, as you spend whatever time you do with us, I'd like to offer you some friendly advice from a member of the faculty.
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Metro Unemployment Rates (Or: When Summarized Statistics are Misleading)
So, the BLS just put out the new Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Report (reporting for July). It looks good! About 90 percent of Metro areas saw an improvement in their unemployment rate ( Read more... ) -
Elements of Community
Our Faculty Workshop last week was focused on the idea of "Community", and "Elements of Community" was the presentation that started the day. Here, I'll share those elements because someone might find them interesting ( Read more... ) -
The Moon, Mars, and Math
So, there's a rumor that goes around every so often - roughly every August for about the past 10 years - that some night Mars is going to look as big as the moon ( Read more... ) -
"Defending" Econ 101
So, over at Salon.com, Atkinson and Lind felt the need to slam Econ 101. They propose that Econ 101 teaches 10 destructive "Myths" - actually, I lied. They said that Econ 101 is "killing America". I think their article needs a response. And, well, Jodi Beggs already provided a reasonably good one, but, darnit, I'm going to do it, too!Before I ( Read more... ) -
Answering Jonathan Chait on the 1%
So, apparently, Jonathan Chait doesn't like Greg Mankiw's defense of the 1%. To be honest, I don't know who Jonathan Chait is apart from the fact that he writes for New York Magazine, and seems to really dislike Republicans. Anyway, in his article he produces a really interesting graphic about income mobility and college education. (I plan to write ( Read more... ) -
Who Works for Minimum Wage
Today, thanks to one of my professors from undergrad, I ran across this page.
We need to always be careful when dealing with statistics, as they are remarkably easy to twistNow, I don't think upworthy is being dishonest, strictly speaking. But, when they conclude "This is why raising the minimum wage would make a huge difference for tons of ( Read more... ) -
The Fed's "Tapering" and Markets
it has been interesting to watch the markets' reactions to Ben Bernanke's speech. If you've not noticed, it's pretty obvious: everything is tanking. This has interesting implications. To get at them, consider each market one at a time ( Read more... )