Transparency Only the First Step to Fixing Finance

Hernando De Soto, the Peruvian social scientist best known for the insight that shining a light on the underground economy is key to growth in poor countries, writes in the Financial Times that capitalism needs to be “rediscovered.” De Soto, like Friedrich Hayek the long-gone Austrian economist who’s enjoying a resurgence …

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Viva Shameless Elitism

Economists aren’t taken very seriously these days for a variety of reasons — not least of which is the dumbing down of the profession, a process that has paralleled the general democratization of expertise in the era of 24/7 cable news. If you still want to know what the very …

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Hosni Mubarak, Meet Ronald Coase

It may be spring for most Egyptians, but this is definitely former Egyptian president Mubarak’s winter of discontent: the deposed dictator and his two sons will face murder charges. We certainly sympathize with Egypt’s determination to hold them accountable; still we wonder whether the precedent is good for …

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Making Nice

WNYC, New York’s NPR station, produces a consistently fascinating popular science show called Radiolab. And happily, “science” occasionally includes economics. One recent segment, “One Good Deed Deserves Another” (download or stream podcast here), describes some of the early computer simulations by  the University of Michigan’s Robert …

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What, Us Worry?

“Deflation is a bigger threat than inflation,” concludes the headline for an excellent piece by economist Gavyn Davies in the Financial Times. Perhaps. But there should be two parts to an assessment of threats like this. First, estimate the probability of the event (e.g., deflation), and then estimate …

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Auction Magic

One day, possibly soon, someone will likely receive a Nobel prize for auction design. Amend that: another Nobel Prize. William Vickrey received one in 1996 for work in this area, and in 2007 Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson were honored for related work. But this field is smokin’; …

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