J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 374

Matthew Yglesias: "You have to understand the growing pro...

Matthew Yglesias: "You have to understand the growing prominence of overt racism in conservative politics as reflecting the collapse-without-replacement of the other parts of the program...

... The Trump economic agenda is not actually different from the Bush agenda even as it implicitly recognizes that Bushism is not tenable anymore. On cultural issues, the whole elaborate framework around blocking marriage equality while touting marriage as a poverty cure has evaporated but again replaced with nothing at all or what amount to irritable mental gestures about bakeries..."

#shouldread #ontwitter #livefromtheorangehairedbabooncage

Justin Wolfers: "The first rule of tariffs is don���t imp...

Justin Wolfers: "The first rule of tariffs is don���t impose them. The second rule is don���t impose them on intermediate inputs and capital equipment used by American businesses, or you���ll just hurt their competitiveness. https://piie.com/commentary/op-eds/element-surprise-bad-strategy-trade-war.... This tweet isn���t about the stink of scandal or the excitement of a gotcha, but rather mundane incompetence that���ll cost people their jobs..."

#shouldread #ontwitter

If you did not read this over at Equitable Growth Value A...

If you did not read this over at Equitable Growth Value Added a year and a half ago when it came out, you should go read it now: Emmanuel Saez (2016): Taxing the rich more���evidence from the 2013 federal tax increase: "In 2013, a surtax on high earners was levied to help pay for the Affordable Care Act at the same time as the 2001 tax cuts for high-income earners that were signed into law by President George W. Bush expired...

...The 2013 tax increase on high earners was the largest since the 1950s, and larger than the previous increase of the top tax rate by the Clinton administration in 1993.... How did the 2013 tax increase affect the behavior of the rich and the pre-tax incomes they reported on their tax returns?... There is a clear surge in... 2012 in anticipation ... top 1 percent���s income share... from 19.6 percent in 2011 to 22.8 percent in 2012... before falling sharply back to 20 percent in 2013.... The spike in 2012 is due primarily to realized capital gains, which taxpayers can retime easily. But there is also retiming for other income categories....

What happened to top incomes in the medium-term?... The share of national income going to the top 1 percent income resumed its upward trend... by 2015 back up to 22 percent.... I estimate that only about 20 percent of the projected revenue increase from the 2013 tax hike is lost due to the behavioral responses over the medium term.... These findings echo the findings of earlier work analyzing the 1993 Clinton era tax increase, which also generated short-term retiming of top incomes into 1992 but did not prevent top income shares from surging...

#shouldread

The idea that the collapse of the aristocratic Roman Free...

The idea that the collapse of the aristocratic Roman Free State into the Roman Empire was due to wild dissipative partying���luxus, a vice caught from the Greeks and "Asiatics", giving rise to avaritia, which then leads to ambitio and cupido imperii���was originally a meme put forward by those I regard as the true villains���plutocrats and political norm breakers���to avoid responsibility: A.W. Lintott (1972): Imperial Expansion and Moral Decline in the Roman Republic: "Imperial expansion in general did of course have divisive economic and political effects...

...This discord should not necessarily be interpreted as moral decline. In particular, radical politicians, who wished to be patrons of the plebs tried to use the profits of empire to satisfy plebeian grievances. By ancient standards there was nothing either new or wrong in this distribution of praeda, though the actual measures clashed with senatorial tradition. What was new was the determination with which politicians pursued their aims, which in turn reflected the strength of socio-economic pressures and greater competition in the Roman governing class. Affluence, new social customs and intenser political strife in the second century were all changes brought about at least in part by empire, but are not sufficient explanations of each other. They should not be wrapped up together and labelled 'moral decline'.

In my view the tradition which ascribed the political failure of the Republic to moral corruption derived from wealth and foreign conquest, developed from the propaganda of the Gracchan period. Faced with the catstrophe of 133, some people claimed that Scipio Nasica Corculum was vindicated, the elimination of Carthage had brought ambitious demagogues and would-be tyrants. The destroyer of Carthage, Aemilianus, had to find another scapegoat. Disliking Greek luxury and effeminacy, he put the blame on Gracchus' association with Pergamum and Manlius Vulso's triumph. This view was reproduced by his contemporary Piso in his annales, while Nasica's view was eventually incorporated in Poseidonius' work. The views have become intermingled and confused in Sallust and later historians. They should not distract us now when we try to understand what changes, if any, in polit- ical mores were involved in the Republic's collapse...

#shouldread

It would seem that veryone serious except Peter Navarro, ...

It would seem that veryone serious except Peter Navarro, Robert Lighthizer, Larry Kudlow���and Donald Trump���knows that imposing tariffs on intermediate inputs is especially bad, especially destructive: Chad Brown: The Element of Surprise Is a Bad Strategy for a Trade War: "Trump���s decision to impose restrictions on intermediate inputs and capital equipment is a step backward...

...It goes against decades of government work to lower trade barriers so Americans have easy access to low-cost, high-quality components. This is a basic competitiveness strategy for any government that wants to encourage companies to invest locally and employ more American workers to create valuable products. Trump���s plan means American-based manufacturing and service providers will find it increasingly difficult to compete with Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and throughout Asia���where tariffs on parts and equipment remain low. That would be bad enough.

Making matters worse is the administration���s ���element of surprise.��� That only amplifies the disruption to US businesses. President Trump may be using this tactic to avoid political pushback. But his sneak-attack tariffs are likely to turn out an unwelcome and startling disruption for the very same American businesses and workers he claims to be trying to help...

#shouldread

TICKLER: Readings and Reviews: Books

2018-04-30:

Allen Downey: Probably Overthinking It

Think Stats
Think Bayes
Think Python
Think Complexity
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/04/2018-04-09-filed-allen-downey-probably-overthinking-it.html #webloggers #public_sphere #python #education

Friedrich Hayek: Prices and Production http://delong.typepad.com/files/prices-and-production.pdf

William Flesch: Amazon.com: Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction (9780674032286): : Books

2017-08-07: Today's Book Haul:

Blanchard: Macroeconomics
Jones: Macroeconomics
Robin: The Reactionary Mind

Walter Jon Williams Quillifer http://amzn.to/2Aed3p2

Stephen Kotkin: Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 http://amzn.to/2iXfM1V

Alasdair Macintyre: A Short History of Ethics http://amzn.to/2AbZ9DR

Stephen Kotkin: Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization http://amzn.to/2AdLTi7

Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained http://amzn.to/2zdM4vs

Enrico Moretti: The New Geography of Jobs http://amzn.to/2xksRXM

Charles Petzold: The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine http://amzn.to/2vYkkXk

Robert H. Bates: The Development Dilemma: Security, Prosperity, and a Return to History: "Reassessing the developing world through the lens of Europe's past... http://amzn.to/2xgSNUi

Geoff Mulgan: Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World: "A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies... http://amzn.to/2wBnMXx

Slavery and Capitalism Reading List http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/08/slavery-and-capitalism.html

2017-09-23

Should-Read: Time to start trying to think about what books to assign for Econ 210b next semester... Pseudoerasmus: THE 25 MOST STIMULATING ECONOMIC HISTORY BOOKS SINCE 2000: "Allen,��The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/should-read-time-to-start-trying-to-think-about-what-books-to-assign-for-econ-210b-next-semester-pseudoerasmus.html
Reading: The Curse of Sisyphus: Books Edition http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/the-curse-of-sisyphus-books-edition.html
Book of the Month: Charles Petzold: THE ANNOTATED TURING: A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH ALAN TURING'S HISTORIC PAPER ON COMPUTABILITY AND THE TURING MACHINE http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/book-of-the-month-charles-petzold-the-annotated-turing-a-guided-tour-through-alan-turings-historic-paper-on-computabi.html
Should-Read: Eve��Fairbanks: CAN YOUR BEST FRIENDS BE BOOKS?: "Should-Read: "I, too, had book friends as a child, and at a time when making real friends could feel like too much to bear..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/should-read-eve-fairbanks-can-your-best-friends-be-books-i-too-had-book-friends-as-a-child-and-at-a-time-when-m.html
Ten Good Recent Books... http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/ten-good-recent-books.html

Anton Howes: The World Economy and its History: "Introduces the main themes of Economic History, from the Neolithic to the mid-twentieth century. It is about asking the big questions... http://antonhowes.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/0/8/21082490/world_economic_history_2017_18_public_draft.pdf

...We will explore why some countries have become so rich, and ask why others remain poor. Among other things, we will uncover the origins of the modern state, and the institutions that make trade possible. And we will explore the evolution of the global economy ��� periods of globalisation, economic collapse, and rapid industrialisation....

PART I ��� Poverty and Riches: The Great Fact: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), Chapter 1; Stephen Broadberry et al., British Economic Growth, 1270-1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Prologue.... The Malthusian Trap ��� why were our ancestors so poor?: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), Chapters 2, 3, 4; 5 Dietrich Vollrath, ���Who are you calling Malthusian?��� (blogpost): https://growthecon.com/blog/Malthus/.... The Earliest Divergence: Why Eurasia?: Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 1997). Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford���; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapter 7....

The Mortality & Fertility Transitions: Ronald Lee, ���The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change,��� Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 4 (December 2003): 167���90.... The Industrial Revolution: Sources of Growth: Gregory Clark, ���The Industrial Revolution,��� in Handbook of Economic Growth, ed. Philippe Aghion and Steven Durlauf, vol. 2 (Elsevier, 2014), 217���62; Jack A. Goldstone, ���Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking the ���Rise of the West��� and the Industrial Revolution,��� Journal of World History 13, no. 2 (October 1, 2002): 323���89.... The Industrial Revolution: Sources of Innovation: Robert C. Allen, ���Why the Industrial Revolution Was British: Commerce, Induced Invention, and the Scientific Revolution,��� The Economic History Review 64, no. 2 (May 1, 2011): 357���84; Joel Mokyr, ���The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth,��� The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 2 (June 1, 2005): 285���351.... The Great Divergence: East Asia: Joel Mokyr, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (Princeton University Press, 2016), Chapters 16, 17; Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2000), Introduction and Chapter 1.... The Great Divergence: The Middle East: Jared Rubin, Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017), Chapters 5, 8; Timur Kuran, ���The Islamic Commercial Crisis: Institutional Roots of Economic Underdevelopment in the Middle East,��� The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 2 (2003): 414���46.

PART II ��� Institutions & Trade: Deep Roots of Development: Kenneth L. Sokoloff and Stanley L. Engerman, ���History Lessons: Institutions, Factors Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World,��� The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 3 (July 1, 2000): 217���32; Understanding Institutions: Douglass C. North, ���Institutions,��� Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1 (March 1991): 97���112; Douglas Allen, Institutional Revolution: Measurement and the Economic Emergence of the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 2011) Chapters 1, 2, 3; Sheilagh Ogilvie, ������Whatever Is, Is Right���? Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe,��� The Economic History Review 60, no. 4 (2007): 649���684.... Trade, and How to Maintain It: Avner Greif, ���Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders,��� The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (1989): 857���82, and ���History Lessons: The Birth of Impersonal Exchange: The Community Responsibility System and Impartial Justice,��� Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 2 (June 2006): 221���36.... The Rise of the Modern State: Nico Voigtl��nder and Hans-Joachim Voth, ���Gifts of Mars: Warfare and Europe���s Early Rise to Riches,��� Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 4 (November 2013): 165���86; Philip T. Hoffman, ���Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered the World?,��� Working Paper, (2012), http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/hoffman-120409.pdf; Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D.990-1990 (Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), Chapters 3, 4....

The Rise of Democracy: Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast, ���Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,��� The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (December 1, 1989): 803���32; Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, ���Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective,��� +The Quarterly Journal of Economics_ 115, no. 4 (November 1, 2000): 1167���99; Inequality within Countries: Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), Introduction & Chapters 1, 2, 3....

Part III ��� The Modern Global Economy: Globalisation 1850-1914: Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O���Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 7; Kevin H. O���Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, New Ed edition (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2001), Chapters 1, 2, 7.... The Great Divergence: De-Industrialisation of the Periphery?: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford���; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapters 4, 5, 8; Alice H. Amsden, The Rise of ���The Rest���: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies, New Ed edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Chapters 2, 3....

Protectionism vs. Free Trade: Douglas A. Irwin, ���Tariffs and Growth in Late Nineteenth Century America,��� World Economy 24, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 15���30; Laura Panza and Jeffrey G. Williamson, ���Did Muhammad Ali Foster Industrialization in Early Nineteenth-Century Egypt?��� The Economic History Review 68, no. 1 (February 1, 2015): 79���100.... The Gold Standard: Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Second Edition, Second edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).... De-Globalisation and the Great Depression: Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992), Chapter 1; Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O���Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 8.... Post-War Re-Globalisation and Catch-up Growth: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford���; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapter 9; Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O���Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 9; Peter Temin, ���The Golden Age of European Growth Reconsidered,��� European Review of Economic History 6, no. 1 (2002): 3���22.

To Read:

Ian Morris (2013): The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations (0691155682): "In the last thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful...

William V. Harris: Ancient Literacy https://books.google.com/books?id=-M_...

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die 9781524762933

To Reread:

William Flesch: Amazon.com: Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction (9780674032286): : Books

Scott Aaronson: Quantum Computing since Democritus

Jean Tirole: Economics for the Common Good

Walter Jon Williams Quillifer http://amzn.to/2Aed3p2

Stephen Kotkin: Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 http://amzn.to/2iXfM1V

Alasdair Macintyre: A Short History of Ethics http://amzn.to/2AbZ9DR

Stephen Kotkin: Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization http://amzn.to/2AdLTi7

Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained http://amzn.to/2zdM4vs

Enrico Moretti: The New Geography of Jobs http://amzn.to/2xksRXM

Charles Petzold: The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine http://amzn.to/2vYkkXk

Robert H. Bates: The Development Dilemma: Security, Prosperity, and a Return to History: "Reassessing the developing world through the lens of Europe's past... http://amzn.to/2xgSNUi

Geoff Mulgan: Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World: "A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies... http://amzn.to/2wBnMXx----

To buy?

Lesley Blanche: The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus eBook: http://amzn.to/2hzG6uu
Katharine Kerr: License to Ensorcell http://amzn.to/2y8nAnQ
Richard Fox: Iron Dragoons http://amzn.to/2xFCAYJ
Isaac Hooke: Alien War: The Complete Trilogy http://amzn.to/2xFQZEl

Ellen Ullman���s ���Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology��� (MCD, 306 pages, $27).

���Hit Refresh��� (HarperBusiness, 272 pages, $29.99), a quasi-autobiography by Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella..."

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artin Wolf selects his must-read titles

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DECEMBER 1, 2017 Martin Wolf 0 comments

Unfinished Business: The Unexplored Causes of the Financial Crisis and the Lessons Yet to be Learned, by Tamim Bayoumi, Yale University Press, RRP��25/$35

Bayoumi, a senior staff member of the International Monetary Fund, has succeeded in saying something both new and true about the financial crises of 2007-12 in this important book. He demonstrates conclusively that incompetently regulated European financial institutions played a complementary role to inadequately regulated US shadow banking in bringing economic calamity to both sides of the Atlantic ��� and to the world.

The Limits of the Market, by Paul De Grauwe, Oxford University Press, RRP��25/$40

In this lucid little book, De Grauwe, a Belgian economist now at the London School of Economics, explains why neither a pure market economy nor a purely government-controlled one is desirable. Getting the balance between market and government is extremely difficult. In practice, we lurch too far in one direction and then the other.

Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Princeton University Press, RRP��24.95/$29.95

This is not just another book on the ���new economy���. It is a lucid and rigorous analysis of an economic transformation in which, for the first time, advanced economies invest more in intangibles ��� design, branding, research and development, software ��� than in physical assets. This change, demonstrate Haskell of Imperial College and Westlake of Nesta, raises extraordinarily complex challenges for businesses and public policy.

India���s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity, by Vijay Joshi Oxford University Press, RRP��22.99/$34.95

India could (and should) do far better. That is the main conclusion of Joshi���s superb book. The performance of the economy is vastly improved since the reforms of the 1990s. But a great deal more needs to be done. Those who care about India���s future must hope that prime minister Narendra Modi will do what is required. Joshi provides good reasons for scepticism.

Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History, by Stephen D King, Yale University Press, RRP��20/$30

Globalisation is not inevitable. It is driven ���not just by technological advance, but also by the development ��� and demise ��� of the ideas and institutions that form our politics, frame our economies and fashion our financial systems both locally and globally���. Globalisation, then, is a political choice, argues King in this well-argued and credibly pessimistic book.

Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality, by James Kwak, Pantheon, RRP$25.95

A little economics, argues Kwak of the University of Connecticut, is a dangerous thing. Politicians and pundits like to use simplistic models, long abandoned by professional economists, to bludgeon opponents of naive laissez-faire economics. One result has been unchecked increases in inequality. Yet, properly understood, economics justifies intervention more readily than it justifies unregulated markets.

Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought, by Andrew Lo, Princeton University Press, RRP��27.95/$35

Human beings are not desiccated calculating machines. They are products of a long evolutionary history and so, like other animals, driven by fear and greed. The financial markets we create similarly reflect ���principles of evolution ��� competition, innovation, reproduction and adaptation���. In this important book, Lo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrates the radical implications of this insight. Above all, markets are not always efficient: they can and do ignore relevant information for lengthy periods.

Agricultural Development and Economic Transformation: Promoting Growth with Poverty Reduction, by John Mellor, Palgrave Macmillan, RRP��23.99

Mellor, emeritus professor at Cornell, is the doyen of the world���s experts on the role of agriculture in economic development. Here he argues convincingly that, in poor and even middle-income developing countries, the progress of small commercial farmers plays an essential role in generating growth and reducing poverty. Governments can and must contribute to this vital transformation.

Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth, Random House Business, RRP��20/Chelsea Green, RRP$28

The great mistake of economics, argues Raworth of Oxford university���s Environmental Change Institute, is thinking of the economy as separate from the society of which it is part and the environment in which it is embedded. She is right. One does not have to accept her metaphor of ���the doughnut��� as the way to think about the range within which the economy would be socially just and environmentally stable. But this is an admirable attempt to broaden the horizons of economic thinking.

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy, by Dani Rodrik, Princeton University Press, RRP��24.95/$29.95

Harvard���s Rodrik was one of the first professional critics of the ���hyperglobalised economy���. In this book, he argues that ���the internationisation of markets for goods, services, and capital drives a wedge between the cosmopolitan, professional, skilled groups that are able to take advantage of it and the rest of society.��� If populists of left and right are not to win, mainstream politicians must, he argues, respond far more effectively to the discontent on those who feel ignored and left behind.

Rethinking the Economics of Land, by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane, Zed Books, RRP��14.95

The removal of land (defined as location) from the canonical neoclassical model of the economy was, argues this thought-provoking book, an intellectual blunder. More important, this simplification has led to dreadful outcomes. The role of land as an asset destabilises the financial system. The under-taxation of land deprives governments of needed revenue. The result has been growing inequality and instability. It is time, argue the authors, to reconsider the role of land in today���s economies and societies.

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, by Walter Scheidel, Princeton University Press, RRP��27.95/$35

Complex societies naturally generate inequality. It has been so, argues Stanford professor Scheidel, ever since the discovery of agriculture. Might policy ameliorate, or even reverse, this tendency? No. In Scheidel���s account the lessons of history are clear: only war, revolution, state collapse or catastrophic plague destroy the wealth of the rich. I wish the argument were wrong, but suspect it is not.

Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, by Cass Sunstein, Princeton University Press, RRP��24.95/$29.95

We are citizens, not just consumers. If, as legal scholar Sunstein argues, each of us obtains only the information we want and talks only to those who think as we do, we will end up incapable of participating in the public sphere. We will be living in ghettos of the imagination. Our democratic societies will then be ��� indeed, arguably, already are ��� on the road to political and social disintegration.

The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin, MIT, RRP��21.95/$26.95

In this important and provocative book, Temin of MIT argues that the US is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with ever fewer households in the middle. But this is not inevitable. It is rather a political choice. The rich and powerful have, alas, persuaded downwardly mobile white people that their enemies are not those above them who refuse to pay the taxes needed for decent social services, but rather feared and despised ethnic minorities.

Economics for the Common Good, by Jean Tirole, translated by Steven Rendall, Princeton, RRP��24.95/$29.95

Should-Read: Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer: 9780674979857: Amazon.com: Books: "http://amzn.to/2DCIBGp..."









Should-Read: Amazon.com: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (9780717800568): Karl Marx: Books: "..."

http://amzn.to/2Fk3E0E

Should-Read: Amazon.com: The Roman Revolution (9780192803207): Ronald Syme: Books: "http://amzn.to/2BuQSKA..."









Should-Read: Amazon.com: Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States eBook: James C. Scott: Kindle Store: "..." http://amzn.to/2DfAxes









Should-Read: Amazon.com: After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (9780192880932): George Steiner: Books: "..." http://amzn.to/2FMk1nL

Without short selling, the current price of a speculative...

Without short selling, the current price of a speculative asset is the expected maximum valuation that will ever be given it by the non-forward looking. When the valuations by the non-forward looking become extrapolative, Katie bar the door!: Noah Smith: Lessons on Bubbles From Bitcoin: "Until there is a way to bet against an asset, its price will be set by the most upbeat buyer...

...The recent Bitcoin bubble wasn���t the first, and it might not be the last. Once in 2011 and twice in 2013, the price soared and then crashed... If you think there will be another, even bigger bubble somewhere down the line, then maybe any losses you took in the recent bubble may be made whole in time.... Basic finance theory says that if there���s no way to invest and profit from an asset's decline, the price is determined by the most optimistic buyer.... This mechanism is a key part of almost every theory of financial bubbles.... Harrison and... Kreps... without short-selling, differing levels of optimism and pessimism would cause even r...Abreu and... Brunnermeier... Scheinkman and... Xiong.... Shleifer and... Vishny proposed to make this sort of constraint, which they grouped under the general heading of ���limits to arbitrage,��� a unifying theory of financial market failures.... Limits to arbitrage can help explain why Bitcoin has been so bubble-prone. Until recently, it was easy enough to take a long position, but expensive and risky to bet against the cryptocurrency. Things really changed in December, when U.S. regulators allowed the trading of Bitcoin futures.... Bitcoin���s price crashed....

Was this a coincidence? Maybe. The huge surge in demand for Bitcoin both inflated the bubble and caused a demand for a futures market. But the timing of the crash, right after the introduction of futures markets, is eerie.... This suggests that there���s a good and easy way for regulators to reduce the incidence of bubbles.... Allow more futures trading and other exchanges that let pessimists publicly register their pessimistic beliefs.... Keeping pessimists out of the market is a recipe for repeated bubbles and crashes, as overoptimistic speculators rampage unchecked. Given a level playing field, the bears can restrain the bulls.

#shouldread

@#$#@!*&%%!! Ana Swanson: Trump Proposes Rejoining Trans-...

@#$#@!*&%%!! Ana Swanson: Trump Proposes Rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership to Shield Farmers From Trade War: "President Trump... [said] he was directing his advisers to look into rejoining the multicountry trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership...

...Trump... long criticized the deal and withdrew from it last January, in his first major trade action. The president has long maintained that he prefers to negotiate trade deals one on one.... Many economists say the best way to combat a rising China and pressure it to open its market is through multilateral trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which create favorable trading terms for participants.... Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said it was ���good news��� that the president had directed his economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, and his trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, to look into rejoining the deal. ���The best thing the United States can do to push back against Chinese cheating now is to lead the other 11 Pacific nations that believe in free trade and the rule of law,��� Mr. Sasse said in a statement...

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This is an extremely strange piece: that if the "New Demo...

This is an extremely strange piece: that if the "New Democrats" of the late-1980s and early 1990s tried to turn the Democrats into Eisenhower Republicans, Kabaservice wants to rescue the Republican Party by turning Republicans into New Deal Democrats: Geoffrey Kabaservice: The Dream of a Republican New Deal: "Kansas... Governor Sam Brownback���s 'real live experiment' in reckless tax cuts...

...[Paul] Ryan, who served as Mr. Brownback���s legislative director when Mr. Brownback was a senator, was the Republican Party���s most prominent cheerleader for the Ayn Rand-inspired idea that society���s ���makers��� should be lavished with tax cuts while ���takers��� should be deprived of a social safety net. The downfall of Ryanism, and the rise of Trumpism, indicates that the decades-long domination of the Republican Party by ideological conservatism is finally giving way to an outlook that, for good or ill, better reflects the party���s changed base. The white working class clearly wants to protect and build upon the public sector, not destroy it.... Republican voters are still inflamed by cultural issues but are nowhere near as hostile to government as most political analysts imagine.... It���s no secret that the interests of the party���s donor class have been sharply at odds with those of its base. But political parties ultimately have to deliver concrete benefits to their core constituents if they want to retain their support. And politicians have to respond to the needs and hopes of their voters, not just pander to their fears and hatreds.

Desperation focuses the mind. As the elections loom, Republicans must resist the impulse to become full-time campaigners instead of legislators. That would only reinforce the public perception of Congress as a dysfunctional mess and incumbents as swamp-dwellers more concerned with their political survival (and self-enrichment) than the national welfare. Instead, the party should approach the elections under the banner of an ambitious program to bring economic revival to the working class.... Rebuild our decaying national infrastructure... roads, schools, hospitals and other civic assets that have been squeezed by conservative cutbacks.... Vigorous support for universal entitlements like Social Security and Medicare (as opposed to means-tested programs that only benefit the poor), robust wage subsidies, a generous child care tax credit and high-skilled apprenticeship programs... a national version of a California proposal to make housing more affordable. A Republican campaigning on the back of a Trump New Deal could sell himself or herself as someone who shares the values of voters in the economically ravaged American heartland but also has a real program to address their problems. It would be a lot more persuasive than just touting the magic of tax cuts. The president would relish an initiative built around the most popular parts of his agenda; he might even find it in his self-interest to call Congress into a special session to pass it....

The idea of a New Deal advanced by Republicans, even as unorthodox a Republican as Mr. Trump, sounds like alternate-reality science fiction. But historically the Republican Party has not been an organization with a fixed identity. Its transformation into a conservative ideological force began to take root only in the 1960s and took half a century to complete. It���s hardly impossible for the party to move toward the economic center while continuing to embrace Trump-style cultural populism.... Before the New Deal, the Democrats were predominantly a rural, socially conservative agrarian party allied with a number of urban political machines, while Republicans were advocates of powerful government and the party of intellectuals, African-Americans and the native-born working class. A reborn Republican Party with economic policies oriented toward the working class isn���t beyond imagining.... The ongoing transformation of the party under Mr. Trump points toward a future when it���s more attuned to the economic needs of working-class Americans���and more popular than the conservative party that faces ruinous defeat in November.

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An interesting example of non-representative firm macro: ...

An interesting example of non-representative firm macro: Ernesto Pasten, Raphael Schoenle, and Michael Weber: Price rigidities and the granular origins of aggregate fluctuations: "We study the aggregate implications of sectoral shocks in a multi-sector New Keynesian model...

...featuring sectoral heterogeneity in price stickiness, sector size, and input-output linkages. We calibrate a 341 sector version of the model to the United States. Both theoretically and empirically, sectoral heterogeneity in price rigidity (i) generates sizable GDP volatility from sectoral shocks, (ii) amplifies both the ���granular��� and the ���network��� effects, (iii) alters the identity and relative contributions of the most important sectors for
aggregate fluctuations, (iv) can change the sign of fluctuations, (v) invalidates the Hulten (1978) Theorem, and (vi) generates a ���frictional��� origin of aggregate fluctuations...

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