Perry G. Mehrling is professor of economics at Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He was professor of economics at Barnard College in New York City for 30 years. There, he taught courses on the economics of money and banking, the history of money and finance, and the financial dimensions of the U.S. retirement, health, and education systems. His most recent book is The New Lombard Street: How the Fed became the dealer of last resort (Princeton 2011). His best-known book Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance (Wiley 2005, 2012) has recently been released in a revised paperback edition. Currently, Prof. Mehrling directs the educational initiatives of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, one of which is his course Economics of Money and Banking, available on Coursera at www.coursera.org/course/money.
Perry G. Mehrling
By this expert
Maynard's Revenge: A Review
Below is a revised version of a talk I gave at the New School University, at a conference to launch Lance Taylor’s latest book. The date of the event was April 28, 2011, more than a year ago, and the delay in revision was entirely my fault—overcommitment and pressing deadlines on many fronts. Sorry about that.
Insights from Bagehot, for these Trying Times
Here is a talk I gave recently at Wake Forest University.
The Clash of Economic Ideas: A Review
When Paul Krugman paints John Maynard Keynes as a pioneering critic of dominant free-market economics, he exaggerates wildly, both about the rigidity of orthodoxy and about the pioneering character of Keynes’ critique.
Mehrling on Soros
The text below is the comment I offered on Mr. Soros’ opening speech at INET’s Berlin Conference April 12, 2012. The text of Mr. Soros’ own speech is here. Video of the entire session is below—my bit starts at 55:00.
Featuring this expert
Why New Technologies Do Not Make Poor Countries Rich
Over the past two hundred years, poor countries have become faster at adopting the technologies of rich countries. So why is it, the economist asks, that poor countries have remained poor, by and large?
Facts and Values Are Entangled: Deal with It
Are there more poor people on our planet today than there were last year? Many economists would approach this question as mainly a technical problem, a matter of counting.
Bottom Up Fiscal Policy: Direct Employment of the Unemployed
To cure unemployment, mostly we prime the pump: we devise fiscal strategies on the presumption that jobs follow economic growth. But the strategies have not worked, unemployment remains high.
Why Economics Needs Data Mining
Cosma Shalizi urges economists to stop doing what they are doing: Fitting large complex models to a small set of highly correlated time series data.