Must- and Should-Reads: June 20, 2017
- Donald A. Yerxa: AN INTERVIEW WITH BRYAN WARD-PERKINS ON THE FALL OF ROME http://www.webcitation.org/6O3GYBfS1?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bu.edu%2Fhistoric%2Fhs%2Fperkins.pdf: “‘AT THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT THE SALERIAN GATE WAS silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet…
- Heather Boushey: The unfortunate power of stereotypes: “If stereotypes lead judges to snap judgements that are racially biased… https://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/value-added/the-unfortunate-power-of-stereotypes/
- Nick Bunker: Weekend Reading: Shifting Targets Edition: “Some critics of the disability insurance system in the United States think it is too easy to access… https://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/weekend-reading-shifting-targets-edition/
- Ben Thompson: Amazon’s New Customer: “the key to understanding the purchase of Whole Foods… is that Amazon is buying a customer—the first-and-best customer that will instantly bring its grocery efforts to scale… https://stratechery.com/2017/amazons-new-customer/
- Mark Thoma: Trump’s Apprenticeships are Based upon a Problem That Doesn’t Exist: “The evidence… points to a skills mismatch… http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2017/06/19/Trump-s-Apprenticeships-are-Based-upon-Problem-Doesn-t-Exist
- Izabella Kaminska: On the rise of unproductive entrepreneurs like Travis Kalanick https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/06/15/2190201/on-the-rise-of-unproductive-entrepreneurs-like-travis-kalanick/: “Robert E. Litan and Ian Hathaway… citing the work of William Baumol, who passed away last month…
- Paul Krugman: A Finger Exercise On Hyperglobalization: “I find myself trying to find simple ways to talk about ‘hyperglobalization’… https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/a-finger-exercise-on-hyperglobalization/
- David Glasner: FIFTEEN THOUSAND WORDS ON TEMPORARY EQUILIBRIUM, EXPECTATIONS, AND CONSISTENCY OF PLANS
- Neel Kashkari: Why I Dissented Again: “The economy is sending mixed signals: a tight labor market and weakening inflation… https://medium.com/@neelkashkari/why-i-dissented-again-b8579ab664b7
Interesting Reads:
- Oskar Morgenstern (1935): Perfect Foresight and Economic Equilibrium https://www.princeton.edu/~erp/ERParchives/archivepdfs/element%20of%20time%20in%20value%20theory.pdf
- Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett: There’s still no good reason to believe black-white IQ differences are due to genes: “If you were persuaded by Murray and Harris’s conclusion that the black-white IQ gap is partially genetic, but uncomfortable with the idea that the same kind of thinking might apply to the personality traits of Jews, I have one question: Why? Couldn’t there just as easily be a science of whether Jews are genetically ‘tuned to’ (Harris’s phrase) different levels of materialism than gentiles?On the other hand, if you no longer believe this old anti-Semitic trope, is it because some scientific study has been conducted showing that it is false? And if the problem is simply that we haven’t run the studies, why shouldn’t we?…” https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/15/15797120/race-black-white-iq-response-critics
- Tim O’Reilly: Do More! What Amazon Teaches Us About AI and the “Jobless Future”: “This is the master design pattern for applying technology: Do more. Do things that were previously unimaginable…” https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/do-more-what-amazon-teaches-us-about-ai-and-the-jobless-future-8051b19a66af
- Evan Horowitz: Unemployment is rising, and that’s good news. Really http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/06/15/unemployment-rising-and-that-good-news-really/nQVe3gkbyQm6L0Qp3c4n3O/story.html: “Sometimes, when the state’s unemployment rate goes up, it’s actually good news. It means jobs have become so plentiful that long-discouraged folks start thinking, ‘Maybe I should look for work again’…”
- Reading List for an Ungiven Course: The “Classical” Mediterranean Economy http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/06/reading-list-for-an-ungiven-course-the-classical-mediterranean-economy.html