A theme I’ve posted on many times before but perhaps worth repeating once again, thanks to this post: How Laissez Faire was Adam Smith?Greg Whiteside writes in The Condo Metropolis Blog (7 December) here: “ADAM SMITH MUST BE ROLLING OVER IN HIS GRAVE RIGHT NOW†“Arguably the father of modern economics, Adam Smith was a proponent of a Laissez-Faire style […]
Read moreSeveral of us regularly provide media commentary through our jobs at the CCPA, CAW and CLC. Once in a while, reporters quote statements posted on this blog in that capacity. However, the Progressive Economics Forum itself rarely receives media coverage. The excerpts below are from page L4 of today’s Globe and Mail. This story drew upon my “Levitt’s Been Thunderstruck” post.  For […]
Read moreA couple of months ago, Robert Oxoby of the University of Calgary posted a joke paper comparing AC/DC’s original lead signer, Bon Scott, with his successor, Brian Johnson. The paper presented the results of an experiment in which test subjects responded less “rationally” to financial incentives in an “ultimatum game” when listening to Scott’s “It’s a Long Way to the […]
Read moreNouriel Roubini invokes the great, but relatively unknown, Post-Keynesian economist, Hyman Minsky, in his latest dispatch about the state of US financial markets and economy. Minsky made the point that finance and financial markets matter, and in fact can have disastrous consequences for the real economy if left unchecked, and therefore institutions like prudent regulation and central banks are essential […]
Read moreAt this year’s Canadian Economics Association meetings, the Progressive Economics Forum was thrilled to have James Galbraith come to inaugurate the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize and Lecture, to be given biannually, with the first Prize awarded next year at the CEA meetings in Vancouver, which will also be the tenth anniversary of the PEF. Here is the text of the […]
Read moreA torrent of discussion in response to Hip Heterodoxy (blogged here) has come up at TPM cafe. The full discussion page, which includes posts by Paul Krugman, Mark Thoma, Max Sawicky and others, can be viewed here. For RPE, I will stick to the self-interest of the PEF, and include only James Galbraith, who is telegraphing, I’m sure, some remarks […]
Read moreA week before the Canadian Economics Association meeting, the article in the Nation looks at the plight of heterodox economics south of the border. There are a lot of parallels to Canada, but some differences, too. At the CEA meetings, Progressive Economics Forum sessions have generally been very well attended (we’ll see how this year goes), and the PEF received […]
Read morePerhaps telegraphing some of his coming remarks in Halifax when he joins the Progressive Economics Forum for the inauguration of the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics, James Galbraith reflects on his father’s The New Industrial State. If you find yourself in Halifax on June 3, noon, please join us at Dalhousie’s McCain Building, Room 2017 (note this is a […]
Read moreNew from McGill- Queen’s Press, this collection of Mel’s writings – edited by Hugh Grant and David Wolfe with an introduction by Wally Clement- is Canadian political economy at its very best. http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2001 Not only is Mel the leading post Harold Innis exponent of Canadian political economy, he was a key architect of the important synthesis between this intellectual tradition […]
Read moreSupply-side economics (and its trickle-down theory) is a zombie, intellectually dead but continuing to roam the halls of the public debate. Witness the 2001 BC elections and the mantra “tax cuts pay for themselves”, a free-lunch argument that we can have tax cuts and not have to pay a price in terms of cutting social programs (note: as of 2007, […]
Read moreOver at Economist’s View, Mark Thoma got a snowball rolling (trickling?) downhill by citing a revisionist article by Bruce Bartlett on the history and legacy of supply-side economics. He then put forward a lengthy and useful theoretical response, after which all kinds of interesting commentary followed. I have taken this updated post for a summary, which includes the original oped […]
Read moreRichard Parker of Harvard probes the legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith, perhaps in anticipation of the Progressive Economics Forum’s soon-to-be-inaugurated John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics (at the Canadian Economics Association meetings in Halifax this June). From the Post-Autistic Economics Review: Does John Kenneth Galbraith Have a Legacy? … I think it would behoove all of us today to attend, […]
Read moreThe February 15 edition of the New York Review of Books has an (extensive) intellectual obituary of Milton Friedman by Paul Krugman (Who Was Milton Friedman?). I’m impressed the Krugman does not really pull his punches much. He is very critical of Friedman the public intellectual after some kinder words about Friedman the economist’s economist.
Read moreIn his presidential address to the American Economics Association, Nobel laureate George Akerlof points to a new agenda for macroeconomics, rooted in more realistic assumptions about human behaviour. Below is the abstract and introduction. The full paper is here. Economist’s View’s coverage also includes a New York Times article that interviews Akerlof about his views (here). The Missing Motivation in […]
Read moreA nice summary of the legacies of Galbraith and Friedman, with a strong plug for Galbraith and what the economics profession lacks due to his death. I should note that the Progressive Economics Forum will be creating a John Kenneth Galbraith Prize at this year’s Canadian Economics Association meetings. Jamie Galbraith has given his backing and will be in Halifax […]
Read moreThomas Palley and William Greider add two (more critical) obituaries for Milton Friedman. Both make the distinction between Friedman as a professional economist and as a public intellectual: Milton Friedman: The Great Conservative Partisan Milton Friedman died on November 16, 2006 at the age of 94. Without doubt, Friedman was one of the most influential (perhaps the most influential) economists […]
Read moreFriedman is dead but continues to wield influence from beyond the grave. Here is a story on Mike Harris and Preston Manning’s commentary that the Harper government is not right-wing enough and laying out their Friedman-esque version of Canada: ”Excessive government taxation and spending limit the economic freedom of individuals and businesses by reducing their incomes and transferring economic decision-making […]
Read moreFirst, a clever arrangement of quotes on monetarism from the New School, starting with Friedman’s intellectual roots, followed by some critics and defences: “[Recessions] are essentially a result of a supply of money that is too small, and to that extent are monetary phenomena…Complaints about excessive habits of saving are in such circumstances calculated to confuse the mind of the […]
Read moreA fascinating defense of Hayek, in response to Sach’s column (posted here the other day). According to Tim Duy, Hayek was more reasonable than we give him credit for being (thanks to Economist’s View for this one): In Defense of Hayek, by Tim Duy: I feel a need to at least quickly defend Hayek against Jeffery Sachs attacks. Sachs leaves […]
Read moreRalph Nader pays tribute to John Kenneth Galbraith: Challenging the Vested Interests The Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith By RALPH NADER I first came across the name of John Kenneth Galbraith during my student years at Princeton where I picked up his book American Capitalism. Wondering why it was not on any reading list for my economics course, I put […]
Read moreBrowsing at a used book store in Vancouver, I picked up some classics on the cheap. Someone must have dumped their economics books, thinking them passe. I’m keen to revisit those classics – the more I learn, the more I get out of them. So I got a 1964 edition of Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Robert […]
Read morePrinceton economist Alan Kreuger provides another take on the “Adam Smith did not wear the Adam Smith necktie” theme, from a 2001 New York Times column, that reviews “Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment” (Harvard University Press) by Emma Rothschild, director of the Center for History and Economics at King’s College, Cambridge: Emma Rothschild … argues that Smith […]
Read moreWriting in the Toronto Star (link lost), economists Arthur Donner and Doug Peters reflect on economics, employment and inequality: The Distorted Priorities of Mainstream Economics Arthur Donner and Douglas Peters, May 2006 There has been a monumental shift in mainstream economics over the past forty years. When we studied economics in the 1960s, economists and public officials who had an […]
Read moreA new book on Adam Smith by James Buchan deepens the case that he did not wear an Adam Smith necktie. Commented on by Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn: Most people these days regard Smith as the founder of free- market economics. He’s the hero of the get-the-government-off- our-backs crowd. He’s the pin-up boy of the flat-taxers and the business-knows-best crew. […]
Read moreOK, so this is not about the Canadian economy. But I woke up this morning with that phrase about Adam Smith ties in my head and had to track it down – the Adam Smith tie being the burkha of free market fundamentalists, and as a result, a fitting gift to guest speakers at Fraser Institute functions. The quote comes […]
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