Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application

"One miracle of cities is that they sometimes renew themselves brilliantly. This could be a whole new form of that." –Stewart Brand



In the talk, Romer suggests that we rethink sovereignty (respect borders, but maybe create new systems of administrative control); rethink citizenship (allowing perhaps for voice without residency as well as residency without voice); and rethink scale (instead of focusing on nations, focus on new cities). If nations are willing to experiment along these lines, they can create new places, places that can give more people access to the kind of rules that they would like to live and work under, and places that can sustain the historical process of entry and innovation in national systems of rules.

Romer has already launched a website, Charter Cities, for further exploration and eventual application of this idea.

Shiller on Charlie Rose

Watch the program here.

Introducing Strategy Research Initiative

The Strategy Research Initiative began as an informal gathering of mid-career strategy scholars in the hinterlands of Nova Scotia in 2007. The goal of the gathering was to create an organization of like-minded colleagues dedicated to the creation of institutions designed to advance research in strategy.

This site also features two completed and useful initiatives: the Strategy Reader and the Empirical Primer.

Stats the gap of the world...

...via Gapminder.

Tips for Applying to and Succeeding In Grad School

...from Mike Moffatt.

Top ten books about international economic history

From the Foreign Policy.

1. Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (2007).
2. Nathan Rosenberg and L.E. Birdzell, Jr., How the West Grew Rich (1986).
3. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997).
4. John Nye, War, Wine and Taxes (2007).
5. Douglas Irwin, Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (1996).
6. Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, Globalization and History (1999).
7. Jeffry Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century (2006).
8. Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, second edition (2008).
9. Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights (1997).
10. Paul Blustein, The Chastening (2001).

The economy will be back on track when..

...when "Timothy Geithner sells his house", says Robert Shiller during an interview by the Daily Show. Below is the hilarious video, well worth watching!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Home Crisis Investigation
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Is behavioral economics doomed?

See David Levine's Max Weber lecture for the answer.

A review on behavioral economics

A very solid primer on the past, present and future of behavioral economics, by Camerer and Loewenstein. Worth a read.

Frontline Documentaries

Breaking the Bank;
The Madoff Affair;
Black Money;
The Persuaders.

Full programs can be watched online.

Interview with Samuelson

On the rise and fall (and rise) of Keynesianism, the influence of Milton Friedman, and the era of Alan Greenspan. Also on the current crisis and the need for a more stimulus spending.

p.s. Mankiw has some more words to say.

Summer seminar

On The Theory of the Firm and Its Applications in Management Research at Copenhagen Business School (with fancy slides, see here and here).

via Organizations and Markets.

Latest Economics Rankings

Top 10% institutions.

Why chickens go across street?

The Prelim version:

1. "Because the price of going across goes down, and the behavior obeys the Law of Demand."
2. "Because the Pareto optimal allocation is on the tangency of the other side of the street."
3. "It is the result of a unique SPE of the alternating bargaining game, the second chicken agrees the offer immediately in the first period and passes across."
4. "Although it is off the equilibrium path, going across is a best response to its own belief."

Good luck to those Macro prelimers!

What's in the journals?

From the Economist, on how to boycott a company, the value of brands, the economics of prostitution, company reputations, the strength of the glass ceiling, and so on.