Category Archives: The dismal science

The Inconvenient Truth about Climate Change and the Economy

The new IPCC Report is overly optimistic about global productivity growth and fossil fuel energy use. More dramatic, immediate action on climate change is needed

Brexitonomics

A short discussion of why economists’ efforts to model the impact of Brexit leave a lot to be desired.

Machine Learning and Economics

Some economists contend that machine learning and AI can improve economics.

How Economists Impede Addressing Climate Change

Earth to economists: you are a big part of the climate change problem.

An MMT View of “Twin Deficits”: Budget and Current Account Deficits

Why the worries about the US budget deficit and China buying Treasuries are overblown.

Mortality Risk, Valuing Lives, and the Impact on Health Care

The way economists think about the value of lives influences health care policy, and some of their ideas may be producing bad outcomes.

Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five

One of the reasons little has changed in economics despite the financial criss showing it to be deeply flawed is the power of the “top five” journals, which show both inbreeding and clientelism.

Mischaracterizing HAMP and Principal Reduction: A Regression Discontinuity Test Error

Explaining a fundamental error in a widely-touted paper on HAMP modifications.

What’s the Problem with Financialization?

Some of the analytical sleights of hand used to promote the ideology of financializatation.

“Fatally Flawed” Paper on HAMP Mortgage Program Gets Program Design Backwards, Botches Regression Analysis, Yielding Propagandistic Findings

How a new paper on HAMP manages, by not understanding the program. to whitewash it as well as promote financialization.

Video: An intro to MMT, as presented at September’s International MMT Conference in NYC

A very readable — or listenable — introduction to MMT, in plain language