Tyler Cowen offers his non-Keynesian take on the recession, applying the theory he lays out in Risk and Business Cycles (recommended for all economics graduate students, but master Snowdon and Vane first). I agree with his arguments, but I want to add what I think is a missing ingredient in his theory: fat tails. David [...]
Tags: Cauchy distribution, Cowen, fat tails, Levy, macro, Modern Macroeconomics, Risk and Business Cycles, Snowdon, Vane
6 Comments »
Back in March, Tyler Cowen encouraged bloggers to list the books that most influenced them. I didn’t think I could come up with a list that was a) plausible and b) would make me look cool, so I did not participate. But I enjoyed reading other people’s lists, and I noted, along with Steve Landsburg, [...]
Tags: abortion, Cowen, Landsburg, Parfit, philosophy, Reasons and Persons, Repugnant Conclusion, utilitarianism, utility monster
7 Comments »
One of the great joys (or frustrations, depending on your personality) of being a libertarian is the opportunity to participate in the infighting. Tyler Cowen’s recent post, in which he muses about a VAT in an uncommitted fashion, has generated some of it, e.g. from Fred Sautet and Dan Mitchell. Tyler responds here. My favorite [...]
Tags: Cowen, Mitchell, negative liberty, positive liberty, Rizzo, Sautet, sovereign debt crisis, VAT
No Comments »
In a post on moral hazard in the banking system, Megan McArdle writes, Nor do I find the central story of how the FDIC induced this moral hazard very compelling. Supposedly, ordinary depositors don’t bother to check the soundness of their banks because they don’t actually have skin in the game. Anyone making this argument [...]
Tags: banking, Cowen, deposit insurance, FDIC, Kroszner, McArdle, moral hazard, mutual fund banking, Sumner
2 Comments »