Arnold Kling is right that Macroeconomics is only a subset of economics – and as a result a failure in macroeconomics does not damn the whole economic method. However, I think he might be giving macroeconomists a bit of a free ride here. Think of it this way – microeconomics has evolved to generalise hypotheses […]
Update: Clive Crook has a better discussion of what is going on than I do (original here) – and how irritating it is – than I do. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m a few days behind on my blog reading, so I only saw this after writing my post 🙁 Even if nothing else […]
Just saw this cartoon by Mike Moreu on the outsourcing of call centre staff (ht Nigel Pinkerton): Source (Mike Moreu on Stuff) Job security isn’t the only difference – the other is wages. The artist forgets to mention that they have job security because they are paid significantly less than a New Zealander would accept. […]
Is it me, or did Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner make matters worse with his announcement about the TARP today. Given how long people have been waiting for a “solution” from government, statements like: We are exploring a range of different structures for this program, and will seek input from market participants and the public as […]
Adam Smith (the NZ blogger, not the 18th Century Scottish Economist) has asked for comments surrounding the “job summit”. Given that this is a blog on New Zealand economics I would feel guilty about not sending some comments his way 🙂 There is a bullet point summary of the post at the bottom.
The mass unemployment in the 1930’s has sometimes been put down to “stick wages”. Fundamentally, the value of labour fell but the price didn’t – leading firms to cut back on employment at a faster rate than would have been socially optimal. Since then, wage stickiness appears to have eased to some degree: Unions are […]