What I am watching

John Nye on institutions and economic development

Peace Corps

UMW ranks first among small colleges and universities in Peace Corps volunteers

college and debt

From "A Lifetime of of Student Debt? Not Likely" By Robin Wilson in the Chronicle of Higher Education

"In fact, despite stories of a large number of students who face gargantuan debt, about a third of graduates leave college with no debt at all for their education. Of the 65 percent who face debt, the average they owe is around $20,000. That's just below the starting price of a 2009 Ford Escape.

"Most people borrow a reasonable amount of money, they pay it back, and they are better for having gone to college," says Mr. McPherson.

But for a vocal minority of borrowers, problems with student-loan debt are very real. About 8 percent of undergraduates borrow at least double the national average.

Why do some students borrow more than $40,000 for a bachelor's degree when average borrowing is only half that? The answer is almost never that they are from very low-income families and need that much money to get a four-year degree. Public four-year colleges charged an average of just $6,585 for in-state tuition and fees in 2008-9. The total cost, including textbooks, room and board, and other living expenses, averages $18,326 a year — and financial aid brings that figure down for many students."

Still number one

Manufacturing in the United States

Immigration and Innovation

Here is an excellent editorial on immigration and innovation by Edward Schumacher-Matos in the the Washington Post.

Entrepreneurial immigrants have always played a leading role in American economic history. In 1789 Samuel Slater came from England, having memorized the latest innovations in cotton textile production.

North Conference

The Center for New Insitutional Social Science at Washington University has videos from the conference honoring Doug North.

Un-Freaknomics?

Forbes profile of Alvin Roth presents him as Un-Freakonomics.
"In contrast with the authors of bestselling books like Freakonomics, who are fascinated by obscure but intriguing questions like how to detect cheating by sumo wrestlers, Roth relishes real-world challenges." Much of Freakonomics was about crime and education, hardly obscure issues. I liked that Freakonomics presented economists as people who do research to try to find the answers to questions.
The problem with Freakonomics is the marketing, which was successful but dishonest. Graduating from MIT, teaching at Chicago, winning the John Bates Clark Medal, and publishing in top journals are not indicators that one has gone rogue. Exaggerting the novelty of Freakonomics does a disservice to people like Gary Becker, Douglass North and Roger Miller (who tried to sell a version of The Economics of Public Issues under the title of Abortion, Baseball and Weed), Dick McKenzie and Gordon Tullock, and many others.

The Neglected Field of Economic History?

This is the title of a forum in the latest issue of Historically Speaking, with contributions from Robert Whaples, Deirdre McCloskey, Werner Troesken, Phil Hoffman, and Joel Mokyr.