Comments on: Bookblogging: Micro-based macro

By: JoB

JoB — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:07:46 +0000

great! better every installment, maybe drop the zombie thing and just go for “all you’ll ever need to now about modern economics (and much you can forget forever)” – I am looking forward to you putting the bounded rationality thing in the mix

By: stostosto

stostosto — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:55:15 +0000

I suspect we need an authoritative delineation between micro and macro, along the lines that someone suggested earlier by analogy to natural phenomena: You can study the structure and behaviour of water molecules, but you need a different approach if you want to study waves.

By: stostosto

stostosto — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:51:53 +0000

John,

This is shaping up to be a very useful text: A readable survey of the development of macroeconomic thought, debates and practice.

Keep it up!

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:51:33 +0000

Re the Phillips Curve. Bit off track here but I’m very taken with Richard Layard’s further analysis. While there’s no stable trade off along the curve it is still possible to shift the curve. For example, that reserve army of the unemployed aren’t going to have much effect in the inflation rate if they’re so discouraged that they’re not even attempting to get jobs. And thus we get the insistence that those unemployed for (as an example) 6 months or more should get training or subsidised jobs or something to get them back at least on to the verges of the job market even if not fully into it.

Given that this is a theory which has indeed had quite a substantial real world effect (may not have been all that effective, I don’t know, but lots of people are spending lots of money on it for sure) maybe worth a mention?

By: Chris Brooke

Chris Brooke — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:28:50 +0000

The simplistic Keynesian interpretation of the Phillips curve was discredited forever…

For an alternative view, see James Forder, “Friedman’s Nobel Lecture reconsidered“.

(From the abstract: “It is argued here that in fact the orthodox economists of the time did not accept Phillips’ analysis; almost no one made the mistakes in question; and very few advocated inflation on bases vulnerable to Friedman’s theoretical critique.”)

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:17:06 +0000

D’oh! Fixed now, I hope.

By: L. H.

L. H. — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:40:07 +0000

Lucas’ ideas were developed by Neil Sargent and Wallace into the ‘Policy Ineffectiveness Proposition’

That should be Neil Wallace and Tom Sargent.