Price Fixing and the Market for Potatoes

Potatoes seem to be a great example of a purely competitive market - identical product, many producers, ease of entry and so forth.  But maybe not.  The Week has a short article about a court case over price fixing by limiting supply.

Power of Failure and Doubt

Malcolm Gladwell has a good article in the New Yorker on the life of Albert Hirschman, a development economist who wrote about the importance of adversity in economic growth.

Economic Inequality & Rock Stars

Alan Kreuger has a presentation comparing economic inequality to rock stars.

Marketplace - Little Known Economic Indicators

The Radio program Marketplace has an article on its webpage about 10 little known economic indicators and what they show about the economy - it might be interesting to ask students to develop their own indicators.

Issues with Aggregate Supply - Aggregate Demand in Econ Blogs

Mark Thoma, in the blog Economist's View, collects the posts from different blogs about why the Aggregate Supply-Aggregate Demand (AS-AD) is not used by Economics Bloggers - and  confronts the issue of why if economists don't use it in discussions, they why is it taught to students.  Economists use complex Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models in analysis.  But these models are too complex to introduce to students.  So, the debated point is whether it is a useful model to teaching students how to "think like economists" or if it is just a "place holder" until students get to high level courses.

Ending Poverty and Driving Globalization

The forces of globalization have done a lot to reduce poverty around the world.

The Economist has a cover story about the success of bringing global poverty (living on less than $1.25 a day) down to one billion people and speculation of pushing that down even more.  Over the past twenty years, more than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty - largely because of increases in global trade.  However, it notes the last billion will be harder than the previous billion.

The New York Times has an article that follows the same story about the reduction of global poverty.

The Economist has a good article about the development of the shipping container and the economic evidence about how it drove globalization more than free trade agreements.

History Shows Limits of Macroprudential Regulation

One of the hopes for policymakers to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis has been to give the Federal Reserve "macroprudential" supervision powers.  The Economist Free Exchange column takes a look at the history of Fed and these types of powers and why macroprudential powers do not always have the intended results.

Economist Summary of the Austerity Debate

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of attacks back and forth between Paul Krugman and Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart over their statement that a debt to GDP ratio of 90% slows economic growth and the effect that has had on economic policy.  The Economist has an article that sums up the exchange between the two sides and concludes that the two sides are much closer to each other than they would most likely admit, and their exchange has by in large missed the larger issues that policy makers need to be hearing.

Mankiw on Picking Stocks

Greg Mankiw has a good short article in the New York Times that sums up economists thoughts on picking stocks in a short format that is good for students.  His suggestion was a vanguard global stock fund.

Economic Growth Based on Technology Adoption

The Economix Blog at the New York Times has a good post, and related chart, on how the rate of technology adoption by developing countries explains the differences between rich and poor countries - basically they do not fully or quickly adopt technologies.

Economic Development and Poor Working Conditions

Adam Davidson has a good short article in the New York Times on how to view the Bangladesh Factory disaster in the light of economic development.  It is similar to the much older article "In Praise of Cheap Labor" by Paul Krugman.

Dani Rodrik - Use of Economists?

Dani Rodrik has a good article in Project Syndicate asking the question, "What Use are Economists".

Andrew Ross Sorkin on Bob Diamond

Andres Ross Sorkin has a piece in the New York Times about Bob Diamond.

Larry Summers vs. Glenn Hubbard

Adam Davidson has a good piece in the New York Times about the economic differences between Larry Summers and Glenn Hubbard about the different views of the U.S. economy  what ails it and what policies should be implemented.  It does not give a lot of theory, but it does provide a good supplementary read to support learning about macro theory and its relation to policy.

There is a good "behind the story" post that provides interesting insights on Summers and Hubbard as well as the way they carry themselves in public debates.

NPR's Planet Money on Reinhart-Rogoff

NPR's Planet Money podcast has a good piece on the revelation of the Reinhart-Rogoff excel error that has weakened their claim that 90% debt/GDP is the tipping point for slower economic growth.  The piece also asks the bigger philosophical question about whether macroeconomics is getting better, or even if it is good at all.  Here it is: