Category: Mankiw

Econlinks for 27-12-’07

  • How to avoid recession in USA: Greg Mankiw’s answer. Gary Becker and Richard Posner advocate a similar perspective (the argument is centered, of course, on the subprime housing mess). Former Fed boss Greenspan already said that one should do absolutely nothing and wait for the bubble to break on its own, just as the people above (e.g.
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Salivating over economics in public

Definitely the morning pill today. Couldn’t have phrased this better. From a self-defined “Ec10 slut” and necessarily via Greg Mankiw :-). The conclusion of this short article is useful to keep in mind as future reference, for everybody– both outsiders and insiders to economics:

When we use the tools that economics give us, we need to be sure that the complexity of the models we use match the complexity of the real world situations.

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How intelligent should leaders be?

Although I think there is more to the story, quite insightful thoughts from Richard Posner and Gary Becker on the relationship between intelligence and leadership. A few potential caveats I’d point out very rapidly:
  • the examples considered are clearly selected to fit the theory advanced (though it is far from clear that if one considered, say, all -succesful and unsuccesful – political leaders within the last century, from all over the world, not just the USA, the correlation between intelligence and leadership would turn positive)
  • “leadership failure” is far from easy to define.
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