I was sorry to see President Biden threaten steel tariffs on antidumping grounds. For my views on this topic, see this old piece I wrote with Phill Swagel, who is now CBO director ..read more

My friend Yoram Bauman, the stand-up economist (who I first met because of his parody of my ten principles), says he’s working on a play... and that it’s a romantic comedy about carbon tax ballot measures! Details on his Kickstarterpage and his blog ..read more

 Run by my colleague Eric Maskin ..read more

In watching part of Jay Powell's news conference yesterday, I realized that what he is doing to just the opposite of good economics communication. When I write an article, give a lecture, or draft a textbook chapter, my goal is to convey maximum information in the fewest words possible. But when the Fed chair answers reporters' questions, he seems to be conveying the least possible information in the most words possible.  Every answer the Fed chair gives is, more or less, a new paraphrasing of what the FOMC has said in their statement and the chair has said many times before.  From t ..read more

 ...based on relevance for central banks.  At the top is the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, followed by the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of Monetary Economics ..read more

In recent years, I have been teaching a seminar to a small group of Harvard freshmen. I described the seminar in this essay in the NY Times.  The assigned readings change a bit from year to year. In case any of my blog readers are interested, here are the books I chose for this year: The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, by Arthur Okun We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care, by Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, by Bryan Capl ..read more

I just finished reading Chip War by Chris Miller (a professor of international history at Tufts). It is a fascinating history of the semiconductor industry. Relevant for not only economics but also geopolitics. Highly recommended ..read more

These TV shows aren't new, but they were new to me, and I enjoyed them both: Borgen (a Danish political drama) and Caliphate (a Swedish drama about an impending ISIS attack). Both are on Netflix, available dubbed in English or in the original language with subtitles. Thanks to Olivier Blanchard for the Borgen recommendation ..read more

I make some recommendations in the Wall Street Journal ..read more

  Click on graphic to enlarge. This graph from David Leonhardt's column is illuminating. Now I understand why those of us who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal have trouble finding political candidates to fully represent our views. There are too few of us ..read more