Should Japan "reflate"?

Posted by | 9:55 AM
In Japan, the term "rifure" stands for "reflation" or "reinflation", meaning a (hypothetical) Big Push by mont...

Trust not in Shinzo Abe, ye monetarists!

Posted by | 12:17 AM
Monetarists are an innocent lot. American bloggers, op-ed writers, and economists seem quite taken in by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe...

Are voluntary contracts always mutually beneficial?

Posted by | 3:52 PM
In a Crooked Timber post about cyborgs , Chris Bertram writes: I expect someone will be along to explain how...contracts [requiring employee...

Rise of the cyborgs

Posted by | 2:35 PM
People have been requesting that I do more futurist posts, so here's a bit of holiday optimism. A lot of recent futurist discussion in t...

New Atlantic column: Gun control is good, but ending the War on Drugs is even better

Posted by | 9:40 AM
I have a new column up at the Atlantic , in which I try to give some perspective to the gun control debate that has exploded since the Newto...

Macro, what have you done for me lately?

Posted by | 9:22 AM
Paul Krugman says the state of macroeconomics is rotten . Steve Williamson disagrees. With apologies, I'll cut-and-paste most of Steve&#...

New article in the Huffington Post: Why conservatives shouldn't fear the fiscal cliff

Posted by | 1:54 AM
I have a new article up at the Huffington Post . Basic idea: Conservatives tend to believe in the power of forward-looking expectations. Tha...

The Omnipotent Fed idea

Posted by | 11:38 AM
Since the Fed started its new policy of "QE infinity" (which it stepped up on Wednesday), acclaim has been heaped upon the econom...

Did risky mortgage lending cause the financial crisis?

Posted by | 3:09 PM
No. Or, at least, not by itself, it did not. The financial crisis consisted of two things: 1. A liquidity crunch or bank run , in which fina...

Is a bailout a tax?

Posted by | 2:05 PM
I'm sure that by now, a bunch of people have piled on to this instantly notorious Casey Mulligan blog post . But let me add my voice to ...

David Beckworth might be very wrong about the multiplier

Posted by | 11:56 AM
Via Tyler Cowen , I see that David Beckworth is claiming that recent events prove that the "fiscal multiplier" is very low. In a ...