Ranking economists

 ...with google trends. (More complete ranking here.)

Market Power in Neoclassical Growth Models

Click here to read my most recent paper, coauthored with Larry Ball. Here is the abstract:

This paper examines the optimal accumulation of capital and the effects of government debt in neoclassical growth models in which firms have market power and therefore charge prices above marginal cost. In this environment, the real interest rate earned by savers is less than the net marginal product of capital. We establish a new method for evaluating dynamic efficiency that can be applied in such economies. A plausible calibration suggests that the wedge between the real interest rate and the marginal product of capital is more than 4 percentage points and that the U.S. economy is dynamically efficient. In addition, government Ponzi schemes can have different implications for welfare than they do under competition. Even if the government can sustain a perpetual rollover of debt and accumulating interest, the policy may nonetheless reduce welfare by depressing steady-state capital and aggregate consumption. These findings suggest that even with low interest rates, as have been observed recently, fiscal policymakers should still be concerned about the crowding-out effects of government debt.

Watch the Speed Limit

Click here to read my column in this coming Sunday's New York Times.

Upcoming Webinar

I will be giving a webinar open to all on March 5. You can find more information and register here.

My recent "visit" to the LSE

Fiscal Stimulus Around the World

CBO on the Minimum Wage

NPR reports:

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would increase wages for at least 17 million people, but also put 1.4 million Americans out of work, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office released on Monday.

A phase-in of a $15 minimum wage would also lift some 900,000 out of poverty, according to the nonpartisan CBO. This higher federal minimum could raise wages for an additional 10 million workers who would otherwise make sightly above that wage rate, the study found.

Potential job losses were estimated to affect 0.9 percent of workers, the CBO wrote, adding: "Young, less educated people would account for a disproportionate share of those reductions in employment."

GameStop

Sebastian Mallaby was a good column on the GameStop phenomenon.

A family member also suggested a good hypothesis: The bubble is being being driven by internet trolls. The right model of a troll is a person willing to waste his time and money to get other people to waste their time and money. 

A Discussion about My Favorite Textbooks

ASSA 2021

 If you want to see me at the upcoming virtual ASSA meeting, you can do so at this session:

Sunday, January 3, 12:15 PM to 2:15 PM (EST)

What Does Critical Thinking Mean in Economics, the Big and Little of It?

Hosted By: American Economic Association & Committee on Economic Education

• Chair: Gail Hoyt, University of Kentucky

What Does Critical Thinking Mean in Economics, the Big and Little of It?

David Colander

, 

Middlebury College

 

John Siegfried

, 

Vanderbilt University

Discussant(s)

Daron Acemoglu

, 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Melissa S. Kearney

, 

University of Maryland-College Park

John A. List

, 

University of Chicago

Gregory Mankiw

, 

Harvard University

Deirdre McCloskey

, 

University of Illinois-Chicago

Betsey Stevenson

, 

University of Michigan

Should the stimulus checks be raised from $600 to $2000?

Larry Summers makes a good case that, on this issue, Mitch McConnell is right, and Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer are wrong.

A New Interview

 ...of me at the website Academic Influence.

On the Low Rate of Interest

Click here to read my column in this Sunday's New York Times.

What I've Been Watching

I just finished The Queen's Gambit, the Netflix miniseries about a young woman who is an orphan and chess prodigy. Great show. Highly recommended.

Trump rallies have killed 700 people

 ...says new research by Bernheim et al.

The airlines don't need a safety net

 ...says Roger Lowenstein.

Economics Teaching Conferences

Readers of this blog might be interested in the annual conference of NETA, the National Economics Teaching Association, sponsored by Cengage, the publisher of my principles text. This year, the conference is October 22-23, virtual, and free. I will be speaking at 11 am on the 23rd. You can get information about the event by clicking here.

Also, a week earlier, I will be speaking at EconEd, a virtual conference organized by Macmillan, the publisher of my intermediate macro book.

Econofact Podcast

I was recently interviewed by Michael Klein for the Econofact podcast. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.

Call me 3380

Here is a website that uses some sort of computer algorithm to measure academic influence. Here is a ranking of most influential academics of all time. Aristotle, Darwin, Plato, Einstein, Marx, and Newton top the list. (I am number 3380.) Here is an article about recently influential economists.

Immunology, meet economics

Click here to read my column in this Sunday's New York Times.