Bad History of Economic Thought

Nicholas Wapshott appears to believe that ignorance of economics should not keep one from writing about it. His editorial in the Washington Post today suggests that the United States experienced hyperinfaltion in the 1970s and that Milton Friedman thought government spending caused inflation and the Fed should manage interest rates to control the economy. In other words, he knows nothing about Friedman or economics more broadly. Nevertheless, someone published a book that he wrote about Hayek and Keynes. Fortunately, the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star ran opposing editorials by Don Boudreaux and Dani Rodrik.

Elinor Ostrom

Her death is a great loss for all the social sciences. Its hard to believe that it has been twenty years since I first read Governing the Commons. It came out in a series that Doug North was co-editing, and he gave me a copy. She will of course be remembered for her pioneering work on common property. I think that in the long run she will be remembered even more for her apprectiation of the diversity of institutions and her insistence upon the need for both rigorous theory and careful empirical analysis. Elinor Ostrom's approach to the analysis of institutional change was not easy, but it was fruitful. I might also note that her papers can used as a model for anyone seeking to write clearly about complicated issues.

More on the 19th Century

What Happened During the 1870s?

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States Millenial Edition series ca 9, ca11 and ca19.  

Shorter papers?

Why does the American Economic Review continue to list some papers as "Shorter Papers" when they are longer than "Articles?" In the most recent issue Schularick and Taylor's "Credit Booms Gone Bust" is in the "Shorter Papers" even though is is over 30 pages long, longer than many of the "Articles." One of the "Articles" is less than 20 pages long. Get rid of "Shorter Papers" and publish the "Articles" in order of perceived importance. Right now it just looks like the editors can't count.   

Dumb Tweets

I just had to delete Brad De Long from the list of people I was following on twitter because he keeps retweeting some guy named Noah Smith. Noah Smith accused Tom Murphy of underestimating the size of North Dakota by a factor of 400. Murphy said that the area of North Dakota was about the same as a square with sides of 425 km. North Dakota is pretty much a rectangle with height of 340km and width of 545 km. Hard to see how he could be off by a factor of 400.

Earlier he said a paper by Michael Bordo and Joseph Haubrich was "bullshit." He appeared to be suggesting that the paper said there were financial crises in 1972 and 1982. The table on page 23 of the paper clearly states that there were not financial crises associated with those business cycles.

I don't know who Noah Smith is or why Brad De Long keeps retweeting him, but I'm not going to waste any further time or energy reading them.

Free stuff

One of my favorite books on American Economic History, Robert Higgs' The Transforamtion of the American Economy, 1865-1914, is available here. Thanks to the Mises Institute and Bob Higgs.

Informal Rules and Food Trucks

Planet Money has a great podcast about the food truck business in New York City. It discusses regualtions that make every parkinjg place illegal, how vendors identify good spots, the economics of location and how it is influenced by product differentiation. But my favorite part was the discussion of informal rules that govern the use of parking spots: If someone has been in a spot for 10 years that is his spot; if there is already a taco truck on the block, don't park your taco truck there.