In no particular order…
The ambitious online policy portal of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in conjuction with Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish think-tanks. Vox EU aggregates short articles by Europe’s best and brightest policy wonks—a really useful site.
A for-profit online magazine (BE Press) about econ policy edited (and sometimes written) by an all-star cast including Aaron Edlin, Joseph Stiglitz, Jonathan Carmel, Brad DeLong, William Gale, James Hines and Jeffrey Zwiebel. Striking on two counts: the quality of the editing, which turns often econo-drone into interesting prose, and the accessibility to non-professionals.
The idiosyncratic creation of Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, (sort-of) libertarian economists at George Mason University. But Cowen’s unusual specialty is the economics of culture, and the blogs are about anything and everything. Who says economists are dull?
Becker is, of course, Gary Becker, who earned his Nobel many times over. And Posner is Richard Posner, the distinguished federal judge and towering public intellectual. The blog is the most fun when they disagree – which is a lot more than you might expect from a pair of scholars immersed in the Chicago tradition.
Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, who chaired Bush II’s council of economic advisors, is best known to generations of undergraduates for his textbooks. But don’t hold that against him. His blog is a candy box of interesting right-center economic analysis.
Harford is a columnist for the Financial Times (many of the columns are reprinted in the blog) and a prolific writer of books about economics that are accessible by humanities majors. He belongs to a short list of journalists who know enough to rate the close attention of policy economists.
A confession: spectator sports don’t move either of us very much. You don’t have to be a fan, though, to get a kick out of this website. For the sports industry is a strange and fascinating market hybrid, whose organization tests the analytic capacities of anybody interested in regulation. The site, incidentally, is the product of academics from American, Canadian and British universities.
The Freakonomics brand may be overexposed. But there’s a ton of offbeat economic analysis to peruse here, a good chunk of it by economists other than the founders, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. Daniel Hamermesh (Texas), Ian Ayres (Yale Law School), and Justin Wolfers (Wharton) are always worth a look-see.
Greg Rushford, a former reporter for The Journal of Commerce (which covers global trade and transportation), is the long-time scourge of the protectionist lobbies. If you had any doubts of how slimy the regulators at the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration really are, check out Rushford’s monthly online newsletter.
Co-founded by Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the IMF, and James Kwak, a former McKinsey consultant, Baseline Scenario offers a smart view from the center-left of the economic crisis in general and financial regulation in particular. Worth reading in an era in which Goldman Sachs seems to have co-opted half the professional economics establishment.
Stavins, who heads Harvard’s environmental economics program, knows a lot about both the proverbial forest and trees of environmental policy—particularly in climate change. We read him for his ground-level analysis of where policy is heading and why.
Grasping Reality with Opposable Thumbs
Brad DeLong, prof at Berkeley, former Clinton administration economist and intellectual sidekick of Larry Summers, has an opinion about everything. His blog is an aesthetic disaster. But the mind behind it is first-rate—and, like his mentor (Summers), has a tough time suffering fools.
This is The Economist’s economics blog. Like the magazine, it is full of good economic analysis by anonymous correspondents. Unlike the magazine, access is free and it is a very quick read.
