Entries by Matt Nolan

Chocolate and prices

An article in the Herald says some interesting things: The world could run out of affordable chocolate within 20 years as farmers abandon their crops in the global cocoa basket of West Africa, industry experts claim. … “In 20 years chocolate will be like caviar. It will become so rare and so expensive that the […]

Monetary policy and the sun

If you can follow the idea that price setting is a co-ordination game, you can see one of the reasons why monetary policy has real effects.  When economists discuss “menu costs” as a major reason for prices not changing, they are primarily thinking of this strategic element (where there are multiple, pareto ranked, stable and […]

Policy analysis presentations

No Right Turn points to a “does inequality matter” workshop thing. Very good, I would be keen to go except – it is over a work day.  It takes up an entire Tuesday, from 8.30am to 5pm.  It is set up so that it is on at a time when lots of people have to […]

Dumb statement of the week

Dr. Bernanke unfortunately does not understand economics, he does not understand currencies, he does not understand finance,” (Jim) Rogers, 68, said in a lecture at Oxford University’s Balliol College yesterday From here. Look, the guy can disagree with Federal Reserve policy – it would be nice if he actually explained why – but even if […]