Archive

Alchemy or Banking?

Two FT pieces by Tracy Alloway caught my eye this week: this article from Tuesday’s print edition, and this post on Alphaville today.

Two things seem to be taken for granted in the current debt-ceiling debate: 1. The parties will come to an agreement on the debt ceiling because 2. These United States have never defaulted and will not start now.

Mention the government and the market and all academic reflection and civilized discussion dissolves into heated monologues. Politicians are an extreme case.

A Monetary Rorschach Test

Last time, I looked at the Chinese property market. The last link in that chain of financial interlinkages is the People’s Bank of China, the Chinese central bank.

You would have thought that to be a “jazz economist” was a good thing. I first imagined a “cool cat” that would entrance the hearts and minds of the populace. Not so.

So, how hard is it to write the history of exceptional figures? Shall we buy film cameras?

The view from BIS

The organizers of Duke’s Summer Institute on the history of economics were so worried that students might be embarrassed to ask their supervisors for a letter of recommendation, or that the supervisors would say it’s a waste of time to study history, so they took a last minute decision to cancel the need for a letter of recommendation.

In his two-tome, 1400 page Dutch Leerboek der Staathuishoudkunde (Textbook of Economics), first published in 1884, Nicolaas Pierson (1839 - 1909) accuses the great Scotsman of being a communist – or at least of consciously clearing the way for the socialists with their ideal of a communist society.

The Political Economy of Debt

The financial and economic crises started by the fall of Lehman Borthers came as a big shock, a financial shock, an economic shock, a psychological shock, and a political shock among others.

Some time ago, my colleague and dear friend (nevertheless!) Loïc Charles wrote on the previous version of the Playground, a very nice and intriguing post on Samuelson’s introductory textbook, Economics, and TV Series.

Liquidity versus Solvency