Book Recommendation

Intellectuals and Society
- Thomas Sowell

January- The month of Samuelson

This January we will be celebrating the achievements of Paul Samuelson. Every month we plan to celebrate an eminent economist- a new feature we are introducing on the blog for 2010.

Related:
Assorted on Samuelson

Which bloggers are attending AEA

Assorted on AEA meetings- will keep updating;

Healthcare Economist;

Joseph Stiglitz will give the keynote address on “Homoeconomicus: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Economic Theory.”

Of interest to above: The Current Economic Crisis and Lessons for Economic Theory Eastern Economic Journal, forthcoming

Tweedledumb and Tweedledangerous

Can you guess how many Austrian economists made the AEA calendar?

Environmental Economist;

As scientists struggle to predict exactly how global climate change will affect our environment, economists are grappling with another question: How well can humans adapt?

Arnold Kling;

I agree with his view that the housing bubble was caused much more by regulatory failure than monetary policy failure

Harvard’s Feldstein: Economy Might Run Out of Steam in ‘10

Krugman on the State of the Economy

Report from AEA meeting, Part I

A Daddy’s Dream: The AEA Economists Calendar

No to Bernanke

AEA Humor Session

AEA 2010 Papers Tag Cloud: Look Ma, We’re Relevant!

Keynes: The Return of the Master

Keynes: The Return of the Master - a recent discussion from World Bank

The author’s last note touched on Keynes’ idea of risk and his suggestions for developing countries. In developing countries, one can calculate the amount of fixed political parameters, without taking into consideration the authorities in charge. What remains uncertain is the political framework, however. Development policy must center on an attempt to establish constant and stable political parameters as a first priority.

Assorted Economic Literacy

What Is the Price Elasticity of Demand for the H1N1 Vaccine?

What's the price elasticity of college in Pittsburgh?

Sen. Vitter Presents End-of-Term Exam For Bernanke

Nine Observations about Investment

The last of the great general economists died on December 13th, aged 94

What is it with Microeconomists?

Assorted on Samuelson

Edward L. Glaeser;

When Robert Lucas, the Nobel laureate who micro-founded macroeconomics and challenged Keynes, decided to switch from history to economics, he spent a summer reading Samuelson’s Ph.D. dissertation, “The Foundations of Economic Analysis,” by “working through the first four chapters, line by line, going back to my calculus books when I needed to.” As a result, “by the beginning of fall quarter I was as good an economic technician as anyone on the Chicago faculty.

David Warsh:

John Maynard Keynes may have had more influence on policy makers, Milton Friedman on citizens, Kenneth Arrow on economic theory, but Samuelson had more influence on the way economics is done today, and the purposes to which it is put, than any other economist of the twentieth century.

David Henderson;

Arrow challenged Samuelson's agnosticism about the relevance of economics, which spilled over to Samuelson's agnosticism about economic policy. Quoting Samuelson's statement, "there are no rules concerning the proper role of the government that can be established by a priori reasoning," Arrow replied, "such banalities are not entirely to the point. Economic theory, being abstract, cannot of course state that government expenditures should be 31.732 percent of gross national product. But it can state general principles which relate the allocation of resources between public and private uses to the underlying preferences of individuals, including those for public goods."

Arnold Kling:

A lot of the feeling about him is correlated with how one feels about math

Krugman;

There have been hedgehogs; there have been foxes; and then there was Paul Samuelson.

Peter Boettke;

Samuelson famously remarked once that he didn't care who wrote the nation's laws, as long as he wrote the nation's economic textbooks. Which he indeed did. His Economics became the leading textbook for college freshman, and his Foundations became the leading text for first-year graduate students in economics.

Obituaries: NYT, Telegraph, WSJ,

Multimedia:
Paul Samuelson, Nobel Economics Laureate, Dies at 94
The National Bureau of Economic Research's James Poterba, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Robert Solow, Carnegie Mellon University's Allan Meltzer and Columbia University's Jagdish Bhagwati talk with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about Paul Samuelson

Summers Says Paul Samuelson Had Passion for Economics

Assorted Podcasts

Most of the podcasts are from the National Economists Club;

Productivity and Economic Development
Bill Lewis, Former managing partner, McKinsey Global Institute

The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty, and the Threat to Global Stability

The Tyranny of the Market: Why you can’t always get what you Want
Joel Waldfogel

The Economics, Policy, and Politics of Poverty Reduction
Jared Bernstein

Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays

The Economic Naturalist

Evolution in Central Bank Governance around the World
Ellen Meade

Economic Analysis and Cost-Benefit Analysis: Substitutes or Complements?
Chester Spatt, Chief Economist
Securities and Exchange Commission

An Anatomy of Jobless Recoveries: Will Employment Lag Output in 2009-2010 as it did in 2001-03? If Not, Why Not?

Innovation Economics: A 21st Century Alternative to the Neo-Classical

The Economic Naturalist's Field Guide

The Debate on the International Monetary System

Keynes’ original proposal envisaged a global bank (the International Clearing Union or ICU), which would issue its own currency (bancor), based on the value of 30 representative commodities including gold, exchangeable against national currencies at fixed rates. All trade accounts would be measured in bancor, while each country would maintain a bancor account vis-à-vis the ICU (expected to be balanced within a small margin), and also have an overdraft allowance vis-à-vis the ICU. When countries experienced large trade deficits (more than half of the bancor overdraft allowance), they would pay interest on their accounts, undergo economic adjustments (possibly also capital controls) and devalue their currencies. Conversely, countries with large trade surpluses would also be subject to a similar charge and required to appreciate their exchange rates. This mechanism would bring in a smooth symmetry of adjustments across countries and avoid global imbalances.

Interesting new staff position paper from the Fund.

Book recommendations

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
Apostolos Doxiadis

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
-Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
-Malcolm Gladwell

The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics
-Steven Landsburg

The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future.

The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and what it means

The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and what it means by Vince Cable

The Great Depression Surge of September 2008

via Google Trends

For Discussion: What's the reason for the search surge in the latter half of 2008.

The Myth of the Rational Market

Justin Fox Sees Need to Open OTC Derivatives Markets

Capitalism 3.0

Capitalism 3.0- Dani Rodrik lecture

Book recommendation

The Fat Tail- The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing
Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat

Related podcast by Ian Bremmer

Robert Engle lecture

Risky Business Managing Portfolios in Volatile Times

The Return of Depression Economics?

Lords of Finance

Ahamed Advises Central Bankers to Be Imaginative
April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Liaquat Ahamed, chief investment officer at Charter Atlantic Corp. talks with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about his book, ``Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World,'' and central banks' monetary policies.

Krugman on the Economy

East Asia Economic Update- Eas Asia Saves the World

East Asia & Pacific Update - Battling the forces of global recession;

-Prospects for recovery among the developed countries are uncertain.
-Over the medium term, the countries of developing East Asia can achieve high rates of economic expansion in a slowly growing world economy to the extent they are able to extract more growth from domestic demand, boost competitiveness, penetrate new markets, and further improve the attractiveness of the region as a key destination for foreign investment.

Related;

comparing the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and the current crisis

Podcast of the Day- Mohammed El-Erian

Pimco's El-Erian Says to Take Investment Risk Incrementally ;

“This is not the time for a pedal-to-the-metal approach to investing,” he said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio today. “We are going toward a highly derisked and slimmed-down financial system, which means there will be less credit available for the economy as a whole.”

El-Erian, 50, said he expects more government regulation, less available credit and an “age of thrift” for the world.

“There will be a lot more caution,” El-Erian said.

Related;
'Setback for All' if Financial Turmoil Slows Globalization

When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change

Discussion on the book at Foray TV


Dealing with Global Fluidity

Demystifying the Hype

A Crisis to Remember

Essential task for G20 leaders is a cinema trip to see 'A Beautiful Mind'
Mohamed A El-Erian and Mike Spence

Let's help innocent bystanders says Calvo

Calvo Says IMF Funding `Key' From G-20 Meeting
Guillermo Calvo, a professor of economics at Columbia University, talks with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about Mexico's request for a $47 billion International Monetary Fund loan, the role of the IMF and the World Bank, and central bank polices in emerging markets.

Related;
Phoenix miracles in emerging markets: recovering without credit from systemic financial crises

A Master of Theory and Practice

Staggered Wage and Price Setting in Macroeconomics

Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework

One who saw the recession coming

Instead, the 81-year-old Taiwanese founder of the world's fourth-largest containerised shipping company started preparing for an economic downturn three years ago.

He had sensed then that a downturn was going to hit in a few years and that it would be a very bad one.

'I didn't have any special deduction, but I had a presentiment,' said the former seafarer in Hokkien at an interview on Monday.

He had also thought then that the shipping industry had massively over-ordered new ships and that there would be a capacity glut in time to come.

Dr Chang also rejected an offer of cooperation to build super-large container vessels from CMA, France's largest shipping conglomerate, last year.

'I asked (the CMA chairman), 'What will you do in bad times?' ' he recounted. It was a big risk to take, he said, adding that those who went into it were 'gua hang' or 'amateurs' lacking in understanding of the industry. The ultra-large container ships would be very difficult to fill in times of recession, he reckoned.

Many in the shipping industry, however, thought then that he was making a grave mistake in not building the very large ships that brought down unit costs.

Events since then show that he was right after all: The industry has slumped as a result of the global financial crisis that has hit consumption and manufacturing and therefore demand for transport of goods.

With great prudence, preparing for bad times during good ones, he has ensured that Evergreen, while adversely affected by the current downturn, is able to weather it without taking the drastic measure of retrenching any of its 18,000 employees or cutting their salaries, as many firms in Taiwan have done. He refuses to retrench because he believes in taking care of his employees' livelihood.

But he is not merely sitting out the downturn which he believes will last till 2012. He has plans to start building new ships next year or the year after next depending on the situation, in order to be ready for the upturn when it comes. He believes the best time to build ships is during a downturn when costs are low.

Despite the slump in global trade, he has started a new container shipping company here, the Evergreen Marine (Singapore), to take advantage of Singapore's standing as a flag of quality. It will initially have a fleet of 13 vessels re-registered from Panama and will have new ships added later.

Evergreen dealt a blow to Singapore in 2002 when it moved its regional transshipment business from Keppel to Tanjong Pelepas in Johor. Dr Chang said on Monday that he has no plans for expansion there.

At 81, he displays great spirit and vigour, which must have sustained him through his younger days when he struggled against great odds to build his shipping business. He had started out in 1968 with just one rickety second-hand vessel and little else apart from his strong business instincts, deep knowledge of the maritime industry from his days as a sailor, and his voracious reading.

In 40 years, he has developed Evergreen into a multibillion-dollar transport conglomerate that runs a gamut of transport and travel-related service companies including shipping, air and trucking services, port terminals, hotels and resorts.

Along the way, through sheer doggedness, he broke through the Far Eastern Freight Conference - a cartel of major shipping companies that closed down last year - to ply the Asia-Europe route successfully as an independent from 1979.

However, he eschewed beggar-thy-neighbour tactics and repaid more than fully kindness shown to him when he was most in need of it.

In his memoirs Tides Of Fortune, he recalled how a shipping agency boss lent him NT$100,000 (S$4,400) when he was facing cash-flow problems. He later invited this man, who had fallen on hard times, to join one of his firms as a shareholder and appointed him board chairman.

It is this sense that one has to lead a life of moral integrity that motivated him to start a magazine to promote traditional Chinese values at a time when he thought Taiwanese society morally degenerate.

The monthly Morals magazine started publication in January last year. Through stories of good deeds, generous acts and inspiring events written in simple Chinese and illustrated by cartoons, it hopes to transmit moral values to young and old Taiwanese. The 12-page, paperback-size magazine is handy to carry around. There are no advertisements. The Chang Yung-fa Foundation foots the bill for publishing the magazine and postage, which last year exceeded NT$10 million.

Distributed free through subscription, it was meant for Taiwanese and the first print run was just 20,000. But subscription quickly shot up to the current 220,000, with ethnic Chinese from all over the world also requesting copies. It was the response from overseas Chinese that gave Dr Chang the idea of raising awareness of the magazine among Chinese communities outside of Taiwan, beginning with Malaysia and Singapore.

-Shipping boss saw the recession coming

Smart entrepreneurs hold key to bubble prediction?

Colbert's word on the Dow

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Fine Line
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Assorted

Rodrik: Simon Johnson's Morality tale;

Finance needs to be cut down to size. What the U.S. needs is what the IMF would have told any country...

Stiglitz: Obama's Ersatz Capitalism

A quick guide to the G-20 summit

One Economics, Many Recipes

Snapping ropes and breaking bricks

Macroegonomics

How Not To Convince People You Are Capable Of Having An Internal "Devaluation"

Obama’s Nobel Headache

Can We Trust the World Bank to be a Knowledge Bank?

Podcasts

Wyplosz Sees G-20 Agreeing to Add More Money to IMF

Shiller Says U.S. Housing Prices Back to Pre-Bubble Levels

Phelps Says U.S. Needs Banks Dedicated to Businesses

Shiller Says Failure of GM Would Shock Confidence
Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC and an economics professor at Yale University, and George Akerlof, economist at the University of California, talk with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about their book, ``Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives The Economy, and Why It Matters For Global Capitalism.''

Nobel Winners Lucas, Prescott Discuss Financial Crisis, Theory
(very highly recommended)

Eichengreen Sees Treasury `Overpaying' For Toxic Assets

OECD economist David Turner assesses the stimulus measures being taken by governments to kick-starts their economies.