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Category Archives: Economic History
Hjalmar Schacht, Mefo Bills and the Restoration of the German Economy 1933-1939
So, I was doing a bit of that aimless reading one so often does on the internet and I came across the transcript from the trial of Hjalmar Schacht at Nuremberg after the war. Schacht was, of course, the chief … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History
32 Comments
What Caused the ‘Great Moderation’ and How is it Related to the 2008 Crisis?
Today most mainstream economists, even those who call themselves Keynesians, hold to the idea that something like a ‘Great Moderation’ existed between the mid-1980s and 2008. This period, characterised by low inflation and moderate GDP growth, was then and is … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History
4 Comments
In the Short-Run We Are All Dead: Probability Theory and Short-Termist Investment
Keynes famously said that in the long-run we are all dead. What he was counseling against was the tendency on the part of economists to discuss economic processes in terms of the so-called ‘long-run’. This idea, which I have written … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Economic Policy
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Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and the Exchange Rate
There is a theory that floats around out there called the ‘Purchasing Power Parity theory of the Exchange Rate’ — or something to that effect, the name seems to change depending on what source you go to. The theory, stripped … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Economic Theory, Market Analysis
6 Comments
Dazed and Confused: Eugene Fama’s Bizarre 2010 Interview
I recently reread a 2010 interview with Eugene Fama, who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). In the interview Fama tries to defend the position that the EMH held up … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Media/Journalism
1 Comment
The Origins of Both Endogenous Money and the Industrial Revolution
The latest issue of the Review of Keynesian Economics (ROKE) is out and it looks like this publication is taking off fast. It includes, among other things, an introduction by the president of the Argentinian central bank (which is available … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History
5 Comments
Swimming Against the Tide of History: Krugman-Galbraith ’96
Lars Syll has brought my attention to a very interesting exchange between Jamie Galbraith and Paul Krugman from 1996 that is archived on the latter’s website (or a website created for him, I cannot tell). Much of the discussion is … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Economic Theory, Media/Journalism
9 Comments
Alternate Reality Economics: Left Business Observer Spiked With the Ergodic Poison
I like the Left Business Observer. I think that its well written, quite amusing and sometimes provides interesting arguments and data-points that I would otherwise have missed. It is also generally up to scratch on economics, although some of the … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Economic Policy
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Animism and Monetarist Thinking: The Inflation in the US in the 1970s
In some tribes studied by anthropologists it was found that members believed that animals and objects, rather than human beings, were responsible for pregnancies. Pregnant women were asked by other members of the tribe what object or animal they had … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Economic Theory
18 Comments
Karl Marx’s Conspiracy Theories
Yesterday I was debating the author of the post I criticised which used what I think to be Marx’s faulty argument regarding the Irish famine and my attention was brought to a footnote that I had missed when I read … Continue reading
Posted in Economic History, Media/Journalism
7 Comments
Fixing the Economists 