- In case anyone is interested, there was a big fight about Ricardian Equivalence, which Noahpinion summarizes nicely here. I praise what the blogosphere has done for economic dialogue a lot, but I think this is an example of an exchange that doesn't have all that much value added (and yes, I've partaken in such exchanges too). As Noahpinion points out, they all basically agree on the main point, and yet these high-profile economists insist on insisting that the other doesn't understand the point. One thing that really surprised me (and the point at which I stopped reading the argument in any detail), was when Andolfatto said "The title of Krugman's post shows that it is he who does not understand the Ricardian proposition. There is no "Ricardian Equivalence argument against stimulus." Indeed---the proposition can be used to defend bond-financed stimulus. (In particular, if deficits do not matter, then why not bond finance?)", after Krugman writes five paragraphs of Lucas making an argument against fiscal stimulus and against Christina Romer based on Ricardian Equivalence!
- Brad DeLong on Hayek and gold. Try to keep my comment section clean. For some reason the really nasty comments come out whenever I link to DeLong. DeLong makes the obvious point that Hayek was not a fan of income stabilization when it mattered. Even later in his life, he seemed so concerned with inflation that I'm not sure how dedicated he ever was to income stabilization. Hayek was no Scott Sumner.
- Ryan Murphy on Constitutional Political Economy, what first attracted me to James Buchanan. Recently I've criticized Buchanan's very odd critique of Keynesianism, but the constitutions work is very good.
- I just heard that my QJAE article will be published in the winter, 2011 issue.
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