Clik here to view.
Franklin Fisher on the Stability(?) of General Equilibrium
The eminent Franklin Fisher, winner of the J. B. Clark Medal in 1973, a famed econometrician and antitrust economist, who was the expert economics witness for IBM in its long battle with the U. S....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hicks on IS-LM and Temporary Equilibrium
Jan, commenting on my recent post about Krugman, Minsky and IS-LM, quoted the penultimate paragraph of J. R. Hicks’s 1980 paper on IS-LM in the Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, a brand of economics...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Traffic Jams and Multipliers
Since my previous post which I closed by quoting the abstract of Brian Arthur’s paper “Complexity Economics: A Different Framework for Economic Thought,” I have been reading his paper and some of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Price Stickiness and Macroeconomics
Noah Smith has a classically snide rejoinder to Stephen Williamson’s outrage at Noah’s Bloomberg paean to price stickiness and to the classic Ball and Maniw article on the subject, an article that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Praise of Israel Kirzner
Over the holiday weekend, I stumbled across, to my pleasant surprise, the lecture given just a week ago by Israel Kirzner on being awarded the 2015 Hayek medal by the Hayek Gesellschaft in Berlin. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Krugman’s Second Best
A couple of days ago Paul Krugman discussed “Second-best Macroeconomics” on his blog. I have no real quarrel with anything he said, but I would like to amplify his discussion of what is sometimes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Neoclassical Synthesis and the Mind-Body Problem
The neoclassical synthesis that emerged in the early postwar period aimed at reconciling the macroeconomic (IS-LM) analysis derived from Keynes via Hicks and others with the neoclassical microeconomic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Representative Agents, Homunculi and Faith-Based Macroeconomics
After my previous post comparing the neoclassical synthesis in its various versions to the mind-body problem, there was an interesting Twitter exchange between Steve Randy Waldman and David Andolfatto...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thinking about Interest and Irving Fisher
In two recent posts I have discussed Keynes’s theory of interest and the natural rate of interest. My goal in both posts was not to give my own view of the correct way to think about what determines...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Price Stickiness Is a Symptom not a Cause
In my recent post about Nick Rowe and the law of reflux, I mentioned in passing that I might write a post soon about price stickiness. The reason that I thought it would be worthwhile writing again...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Primer on Equilibrium
After my latest post about rational expectations, Henry from Australia, one of my most prolific commenters, has been engaging me in a conversation about what assumptions are made – or need to be made –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hayek and Intertemporal Equilibrium
I am starting to write a paper on Hayek and intertemporal equilibrium, and as I write it over the next couple of weeks, I am going to post sections of it on this blog. Comments from readers will be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Correct Foresight, Perfect Foresight, and Intertemporal Equilibrium
In my previous post, I discussed Hayek’s path-breaking insight into the meaning of intertemporal equilibrium. His breakthrough was to see that an equilibrium can be understood not as a stationary state...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Roy Radner and the Equilibrium of Plans, Prices and Price Expectations
In this post I want to discuss Roy Radner’s treatment of an equilibrium of plans, prices, and price expectations (EPPPE) and its relationship to Hayek’s conception of intertemporal equilibrium, of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hayek and Temporary Equilibrium
In my three previous posts (here, here, and here) about intertemporal equilibrium, I have been emphasizing that the defining characteristic of an intertemporal equilibrium is that agents all share the...
View ArticleMore on Sticky Wages
It’s been over four and a half years since I wrote my second most popular post on this blog (“Why are Wages Sticky?”). Although the post was linked to and discussed by Paul Krugman (which is almost...
View ArticlePhillips Curve Musings
There’s a lot of talk about the Phillips Curve these days; people wonder why, with the unemployment rate reaching historically low levels, nominal and real wages have increased minimally with inflation...
View ArticlePhillips Curve Musings: Addendum on Budget Deficits and Interest Rates
In my previous post, I discussed a whole bunch of stuff, but I spent a lot of time discussing the inappropriate use of partial-equilibrium supply-demand analysis to explain price and quantity movements...
View ArticlePhillips Curve Musings: Second Addendum on Keynes and the Rate of Interest
In my two previous posts (here and here), I have argued that the partial-equilibrium analysis of a single market, like the labor market, is inappropriate and not particularly relevant, in situations in...
View ArticleJack Schwartz on the Weaknesses of the Mathematical Mind
I was recently rereading an essay by Karl Popper, “A Realistic View of Logic, Physics, and History” published in his collection of essays, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, because it...
View Article
