Archives: October 2005

More on the Fed and Long-Term Growth

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 28, Categories: The Fed

First, let me say that I just reviewed Ben Friedman’s new book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. People should take a look. Now onto Bernanke and what the Fed...

Will Bernanke's Appointment Hurt Innovation and Technology?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 24, Categories: The Fed

Right now there's a big love-in going on, as economists on both the left and the right fall over themselves to say what a great choice Ben Bernanke is. I'm...

Greenspan's Real Legacy

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 24, Categories: The Fed

Before entering the Bernanke era, I want to say a word about Alan Greenspan. In my opinion, Greenspan's greatest achievement is that he showed us that central bankers didn't have...

The Arithmetic of R&D

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 19, Categories: Tech

In a post entitled More Free Lunch Economics from Michael Mandel, PGL on Angry Bear writes: An increase in government-sponsored R&D might be a very nice thing as Mandel suggests,...

What economic policy really needs to focus on

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 19, Categories: Tech

Peter Harsha at the Computing Research Policy Blog quotes from Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post. Mallaby writes: A lot of Washington debates are about managing bad stuff: war, terrorism,...

Quote of the Day

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 19, Categories: autos

In today's Wall Street Journal, there was a quote from GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz, taken from remarks he made earlier in 2005. The quote was I'd say that Toyota...

Startup School Talk

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 19, Categories: Tech

As promised, here are my prepared remarks for my presentation at the Startup School last Saturday. More reports on the day here, here, and here....

Pessimist Turns Optimist

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 18, Categories: Fiscal Policy

Can Chinese savings bail out the developed countries over the long run? In a very interesting new study, three economists, including long-time fiscal pessimist Larry Kotlikoff, say yes: In previous...

More and more and more savings!

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 17, Categories: Macro

I don't care much about the savings rate. I don't think it's a good indicator of future growth, and I've said so repeatedly, with lots of charts and graphs, including...

The Next Fed Chairman: Is Conventional Wisdom Wrong?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 17, Categories: The Fed

As the game of guessing the next Fed Chairman goes into full gear, I heartily recommend taking a look at Rich Miller's terrific story in the latest issue of BusinessWeek...

Mandel goes to startup school

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 17, Categories: Tech

Last Saturday I went to startup school in Boston (Memo to the editor-in-chief: No, I'm not about to leave BW to start a new company). Actually, I had a great...

Why the debate over game theory is important

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 13, Categories: Theory

Well, it looks like game theory is a great uniter, with economists on both the right and the left leaping in to defend it from my questions, The first shot...

What Standards Should be Applied to Game Theory?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 12, Categories: Theory

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution responds to my criticism of game theory here: I can think of possible responses: 1. Behavioral approaches will flesh out how humans actually behave. Game...

Winners and Losers

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 11, Categories: Growth

As regular readers of this blog know, I think that total factor productivity growth is the best measure of an economy's health. A new paper from the BIS calculates TFP...

More on rationality

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 11, Categories: Theory

Here's a link to a new piece that I wrote on the Nobel Prize: I like rationality as much as the next person. When I was in high school in...

Game Theory vs Behavioral Economics

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 10, Categories: Theory

The economics blogs had a very positive reaction, in general, to this morning's announcement of Robert Aumann and Thomas Schelling as the latest Nobelists in economics . For example, Tyler...

New Baseball Teams for New York and Boston?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 07, Categories: sports

It's the post-season, and once again the Yankees and the Red Sox are in the playoffs. Here's a very simple reason why: There are too few baseball teams in New...

The Capital Fundamentalists Ride Again

Posted by: Michael Mandel on October 06, Categories: Growth

In a recent post on the savings rate, James Hamilton of Econbrowser writes In the long run, a key determinant of national income is national wealth, which is only acquired...