hjeconomics: The Blog. 2011-15. NOW CLOSED http://blog.hjeconomics.dk Stochastic ramblings about economics and economists by Henrik Jensen Fri, 17 Jul 2015 16:24:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.18 http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/cropped-hjecon-copy-32x32.jpg hjeconomics: The Blog. 2011-15. NOW CLOSED http://blog.hjeconomics.dk 32 32 Are ECB’s Greek bond purchases really irrelevant for the private sector? http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/07/17/are-ecbs-greek-bond-purchases-really-irrelevant-for-the-private-sector/ Fri, 17 Jul 2015 16:18:33 +0000 http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/?p=1039 Motivated by the current discussions about the Greek debt problems, Paul De Grauwe and Yuemei Ji have a VoxEu column addressing “Why the ECB should not insist on repayment of its Greek bonds”. In a debate that currently is, and has been for a long while, marred by political idiosyncrasies and ethnic stereotypes of the worst kind, it is a sound and healthy contribution based on basic public accounting. In all fairness, however, the authors cannot help contributing to the nationalistic platitude by making snide remarks about “hard-working German tax payers”. Also, in an earlier VoxEu column on the same subject they almost question the intellectual sanity of German economics … Continue reading →

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]]> Is Greg getting bailed out by his rich uncle? http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/07/01/is-greg-getting-bailed-out-by-his-rich-uncle/ http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/07/01/is-greg-getting-bailed-out-by-his-rich-uncle/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:42:51 +0000 http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/?p=1033 I have an old friend, and he probably won’t mind I am telling you this, but for sake of anonymity, I will just call him Greg. He has had some economic difficulties recently, but his family has stepped in at different points. This, I thought, was great for Greg, but the whole sequence of events has led to a lot of animosity within Greg’s family. Even though I am biased, since Greg is my friend, I still can’t help thinking that he somewhat has to blame himself. But I’ll let you be the judge. The background is that Greg and his family found their dream house some years ago, and … Continue reading →

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]]> http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/07/01/is-greg-getting-bailed-out-by-his-rich-uncle/feed/ 7 Taylor legislation? Rules versus discretion misunderstood http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/02/04/taylor-legislation-rules-versus-discretion-misunderstood/ http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/02/04/taylor-legislation-rules-versus-discretion-misunderstood/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2015 15:50:38 +0000 http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/?p=1015 John B. Taylor is one of the profession’s most recognized macroeconomists, and for good reason. He has made numerous contributions to theories on wage and price formation and monetary policy. Many concepts are so central that they carry his name. “Taylor contracts” (staggered nominal wage or price contracts that are a central ingredient in many macroeconomics models), “Taylor curves” (curves that simply illustrate the feasible monetary policy trade offs), and, of course, the “Taylor Rule”, which is a specification of a nominal interest rate rule for a central bank. Originally mentioned in a 1993 paper, Taylor showed that the simple rule—that recommends that the nominal interest rate adjust to inflation … Continue reading →

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]]> http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2015/02/04/taylor-legislation-rules-versus-discretion-misunderstood/feed/ 13 Partisanship and dismal economics blogging http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2014/06/30/bipartisanship-and-dismal-economics-blogging/ Mon, 30 Jun 2014 13:08:16 +0000 http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/?p=999 I haven’t been blogging much lately. Frankly, I got tired of it. Of course, very few read what I write, but I have no problems with that. I blog mostly to maintain some record of my thoughts. I mainly got tired of the whole so-called academic blogosphere. In particular the one originating from the US, which of course tends to be quite dominating. My problem is the reductive nature of much academic US blogging. Many bloggers are high-profiled academic economists, who through their blogging are simplifying arguments so as to set up a “Them versus Us” feeling in the mind of the reader. Paul Krugman, of course, excels in this. … Continue reading →

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]]> Chris Auld’s 18 signs http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/2013/10/25/chris-aulds-18-signs/ Fri, 25 Oct 2013 11:15:32 +0000 http://blog.hjeconomics.dk/?p=985 Chris Auld really nails some common silly/ignorant ways of bashing economic sciences in his recent blog post. I could not have done it any better, and the funny/sad thing is that the 18 signs he lists which differentiate “crankery from solid criticism” are all signs that I see in my home-country media. Day after day. So these appear to be universal. Here is the post (and lots of the comments unintentionally prove several of his points)—enjoy: http://chrisauld.com/2013/10/23/18-signs-youre-reading-bad-criticism-of-economics/

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