I learned a fact from Chris Dillow who went on to conjecture that “consumers -in aggregage – have genuine foresight” I agree that “confidence” is a non-explanation for fluctuations in consumer spending. Such fluctuations can, for the most part, be explained by observable economic variables such as incomes, unemployment and credit availability, as John Muellbauer, […]

Former attorney general Michael Mukasy said “”Whether you impeach somebody doesn’t depend on whether they violate the law,” Mukasey said. “”The president can stay within his lawful powers and still commit an impeachable offense. …” He totally rejects opposes and declares his contempt for the US Constition which says “The President, Vice President and all […]

Brad DeLong quotes Joseph Stiglitz and notes that Stiglitz disagrees with Keynes Stiglitz said a peculiar doctrine came to be accepted, the so-called “neoclassical synthesis.” It argued that once markets were restored to full employment, neoclassical principles would apply. The economy would be efficient. We should be clear: this was not a theorem but a […]

Many macroeconomists use models of aggregate consumption based on utility maximization by a rational representative agent. Some models also include liquidity constrained or rule of thumb consumers, but all micro founded models include inter-temporal substitution subject to a lifetime budget constraint. It is also standard to assume that utility is additively separable in consumption and […]

Sorry for my absence. This is mainly a link to this post by Emily Badger at the still excellent wonkblog. just a quote a 10 percentage point increase in Medicaid eligibility among children in a state translated into a 5.2 percent decline in high school dropouts (among all students), a 1.1 percent increase in college […]

I was reluctant to read this post by Paul Waldman Obama must fix VA scandal to redeem liberal vision of government. In general, I think very highly of him and think he does our [n]name proud. The post is OK, but I will criticize it. My reaction to the Veterans’ Administration scandal was first to […]

Here is another comment on Krugman. It is exactly the maximum length he allows (and three periods are followed by single spaces to get the counter to 0 from -3 — I might as well tweet). His excellent post is here. He links to an even better post by Matt O’Brien at wonkblog. It’s depressing, […]

Paul Krugman wrote the “neo-Fisherite” view that lower interest rates lead to lower inflation [skip] why doesn’t this debate emphasize the large empirical literature on the effects of monetary shocks? [skip] I mean, this is largely what Chris Sims got his prize for. It’s about as close to a fully established empirical result as we […]

Via Mark Thoma, Antonio Fatas has a really excellent post on what’s wrong with economics education. It is too good to excerpt (and besides Thoma does that better than I can). I was particularly interested in one of Fatas’s points #3 The need for a unified theory. The idea that economics is a rigorous science […]

This is another entry into the series Rip Van Keynesian wakes up after 40 years and tries to analyse data up through 2013 with Paleo Keynesian concepts and statistical techniques. I’m pretty sure the main reason these notes can’t be published in any academic journal is that I will use old fashioned statistical techniques. It […]