01
May
2012
A recent blog post on tractor service stations generated an interesting discussion in the comment section.
10
April
2012
One of the recurring themes of Soviet propaganda was the tractor. Think for example of the film “Zemlya” by Alexander Dovzhenko, which features the triumphant arrival of the first tractor in a village and leaves no doubt that communism is to thank.
23
March
2012
End of the week –and a fresh serving of interesting links from economist bloggers and blogging economists. 1. Joe Weisenthal from the Business Insider tells us how Ben Bernanke murdered the gold standard – and good riddance too! 2. Nice infographics from Turbotax on the history of taxes in the US. 3. Econbrowser discusses the prospects of the Eurozone crisis. 4. Michael Sandel talks about market thinking from an unusual point of view. Quite illuminating, in a way. 5. The Free Exchange blog explains (or tries to explain) several of America’s macro puzzles. As usual, excellent read. 6. Noahpinion talks about an interesting model of asset bubbles. 7. A very nice piece on heterogeneity from the Minneapolis Fed. 8. Some stabs in the back of libertarianism from Noahpinion again. Couldn’t agree more, really. 9. Witty counterfactual from our old friend, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. 10. And from him again, something useful for those who like myself teach macro – problems with teaching SRAS shocks
13
March
2012
I know. I know that I know. For as long as the human race existed, knowledge embodied power. In the life of a society, however, what becomes even more important is the fact that we share certain knowledge with fellow human beings, and that we, moreover, are aware of each other’s knowledge.
10
March
2012
We all know how inventive (and sometimes devious) the human mind can be in inventing different kinds of mediums of exchange – which we simply call money. Everybody has heard of cigarettes or cowrie shells, used by people in different economic situations as a replacement for all so familiar gold coins or Ben Franklin portraits in green.
