The Amazing Internet

This thing we call the internet continues to astound me. At this very moment I am proctoring my ECO120 final while watching a live feed of the Giro d'Italia courtesy of OLN. While I would have prefered to have watched it at home, without having to have paid extra, and with the commentary of Phil, Paul, and Bob Roll, this is still much better than nothing. Or even a little better than just reading it on cyclingnews.

Keywords: Technology, Cycling

An Interview with Mankiw

Russell Roberts conducts an interview with Mankiw laregly covering his time at the CEA, but they also touch on a few other topics.

Here is the money quote about our President:

Roberts: What is your perception of the President as a consumer of economic
analysis?

Mankiw: I think he's got a great intuition for economics—he doesn't think like an economist in the sense of thinking in terms of equations and graphs. He was an undergraduate history major and that's a pretty good description of how he thinks about things.

They also have an interesting exchange about the academic market for ideas.

Keywords: CEA, Mankiw

Bates Medal

As others have pointed out here (and here), Daron Acemoglu has won the John Bates Clark Medal, at least in part for his work on economic growth and the role of institutions.

Acemoglu has several papers that argue that institutions play a more
prominent role in development than was generally accepted. His 2002 QJE paper
with Johnson and Robinson argues that countries that were relatively rich in
1500 are now relatively poor, a point that is inconsistent with the view that
geography is destiny. The argument, supported by empirical evidence, is that
this is due to colonizing countries treating rich and densely populated
countries differently from poor and sparsely populated countries. In the former,
they followed policies of extracting wealth and in the latter they followed
policies that encouraged investment. Acemoglu’s 2001 AER paper, also with
Johnson and Robinson, uses differences in mortality rates faced by Europeans in
different countries to study further the degree to which different policies lead
to different institutions, which in turn lead to different development paths.
Some of the methods and the conclusions of this paper are still being debated,
but this line of Acemoglu’s work has already stimulated substantial research
that rethinks the development process. In related work on political economy, for
example with Robinson in APSR 2001, he has examined the dynamics of political
processes and the persistence of inefficient policies. This work has been
influential in political science.

Levitt points out that Acemoglu's work challenges conventional wisdom which believes that democracies produces the highest possible growth rates. From the little research I did in this area I recall that is was long believed that totalitarian regimes could produce higher growth rates. Well, it was believed up until the Soviet Union Collapsed. Even after that happened the view that democracy was the key to growth often came with caveats. Freedoms are important for growth, but some freedoms impose costs that can constrain grwoth as well. Its probably less about democracy per se so and more about free and stable institutions, which seldom occur in non-democracies, or democracies for that matter.

Keywords: Growth, ECO120, ECO305

Coulee Region Blogs

While reading the La Crosse Tribune online, I noticed in a story by Reid Magney that he has a blog called River Valley Blogs. He has a few interesting entries, I found this one on op-ed pieces pretty entertaining. More importantly I found a list of local bloggers. Seems to be missing this blog, I'll have to drop him a note.

Update: He even cites some of the data I've gathered here.

Keywords: La Crosse, Blogs

Libertarian Views

Via Newmark's Door we have access to Jeffery Miron's lecture notes on the libertarian perspective on everything from abortion to civil marriage. This is another great example of the positive externalities reaped through the internet.

I also recently recieved a letter from Milton Friedman encouraging me to endorse Miron's research sponsored by MPP's on the budgetary implications of the prohibition of weed (pot, reefer, mary jane, etc.).

Keywords: Libertarian, Drug Leagalization, ECO120

Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage laws are classic examples of price floors. We teach (well most of us) that if price floor is set above the equilibrium price it cause a surplus. A surplus of labor is also called unemployment. So one might argue that minimum wage laws have employment effects, well if you still believe that supply curves slope upward. One might argue about the size of those employment effects, but I think most of us still believe they exist.

For a great discussion of the real world consequences of minimum wage laws for one particular employer click here.

Despite this our two mayoral candidates both favor raising the wage locally.

Keywords: Price Floor, Minimum Wage, ECO120

The War on Drugs

There have been a couple of great blog entries on the War on Drugs recently. First here are some interesting data via Mahalanobis. And Becker and Posner have weighed in with some thoughtful writing on the topic and they both follow up on reader comments here and here respectively.

Keywords: Drugs, Legalization, ECO120