Economist Channel

See below for some very interesting posts in the area of beheavioural economics and energy.SEAI NOW HIRINGSustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) is central to delivering a more sustainable energy future for everyone. Our role is to transform way we all use energy by moving to more efficient and clean sources, and by leading innovation in Ireland's...

Source: Real Clear PoliticsThe electoral college is back in the news, with Democrats suddenly discovering it's a terrible idea.I wrote at length in defense of the college in a previous post. I wrote just before the 2012 election so I can credibly claim that my view is not a...

As you can see, we have changed the title of the blog. It is now simply "economics, psychology, policy". The main function of the blog will continue to be to disseminate information in the areas of behavioural economics, economic psychology, and broad cognate areas. It will also be used to disseminate information about the activities in both the Dublin...

How would you like to work at Hoover for a year, focusing on research with no teaching or other responsibilities, and soaking up the intellectual climate of Hoover and Stanford? If you are an economist roughly 3-10 years post PhD, doing research with some policy relevance that would benefit from a year here, this could be for you.More information and...

A draft of a new paper is up on my webpage, "Michelson-Morley, Occam and Fisher: The Radical Implications of Stable Inflation at Near-Zero Interest Rates." This combines some talks I had given with the first title, and a much improved version of "does raising interest rates raise...

Source: Wall Street Journal"President-elect Donald Trump owns a helicopter in Scotland.To be more precise, he has a revocable trust that owns 99% of a Delaware limited liability company that owns 99% of another Delaware LLC that owns a Scottish limited company that owns another Scottish...

Source: Wall Street JournalOn November 7 I wrote "Don't believe the economic pessimists," an oped about growth in the Wall Street Journal. Now that 30 days have passed, I can post the whole thing here. pdf here (my webpage).Don't Believe the Economic PessimistsNo matter who wins...

Where will the next crisis come from?  Every crisis starts with a pile of debt that can't be paid back, and shady accounting to hide that debt. When one big one goes under, everybody starts to question the shady deals they've invested in, the extend-and-pretend game ends, heretofore simple rolling over of short term debt suddenly ends, and the...

The Fed has a huge "balance sheet" -- It owns about $3 trillion of government bonds and mortgage backed securities, which it finances by issuing about $1 trillion of cash and $2 trillion of reserves -- interest-bearing accounts that banks have at the Fed. Is this a problem? Should the Fed trim the balance sheet going forward?On Tuesday Dec 6, I participated...

The paper below co-authored by many of the leading figures in the application of randomised trials in public policy is well worth reading.From Proof of Concept to Scalable Policies: Challenges and Solutions, with an Application Abhijit Banerjee, Rukmini Banerji, James Berry, Esther Duflo, Harini Kannan, Shobhini Mukerji, Marc Shotland, and Michael...

When Paul Krugman, Larry Summers,  Sarah Palin, and the Wall Street Journal all agree on something -- that presidential deal-making and strong-arming over plant location is a terrible idea -- it's worth paying attention to. I think Tyler Cowen did the best job of describing what's wrong with the deal, interviewed on NPR. (Transcript, Highlights...

Roll up your shirtsleeves, financial economists. As reported by Elizabeth Dexheimer at Bloomberg, Rep. Jeb Hensarling is “interested in working on a 2.0 version,”  of his financial choice act, the blueprint for reforming Dodd-Frank. “Advice and counsel is welcome."The core of the choice act is simple. Large banks must fund themselves with...

I'll be part of "Central Bank Governance and Oversight Reform: A Panel Discussion" at the Hoover Institution Washington DC offices, Tuesday Dec 6, 2016 10:00-12:00. The panelists will be  Michael Bordo, John Cochrane, Charles Plosser, John Taylor, and Kevin Warsh.The occasion...

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has released several papers over the last three years on the use of behavioural economics in policy (I would particularly recommend their first paper on this for a very useful overview of behavioural economics)e. Their latest paper is available here (summary below). It summarises a range of experimental evidence from...

For Thanksgiving, I offer a rumination.Last month, the Hoover Institution's fall retreat was organized around the theme of American Exceptionalism. See here for podcasts of talks from the stars -- really good. I talked about the nexus between economics, rule of law, regulation, and exceptionalism.This was before the election, but two themes strike...