Time-travel thriller about a man living in 2013 tweeting desperate warnings to his 2017 self who has become President
Capital Cause and Effect
Òscar Jordà, Björn Richter, Moritz Schularick, and Alan Taylor wrote a provocative What has bank capital ever done for us? at VoxEu, advertising the underlying paper Bank Capital Redux (NBER, CEPR link here, [ … ]
Democracy Dies in Darkness
…BUT if you watch this commercial + give us your email we’ll give you 7 more days of light. Then darkness again
A Quick Theory of the Industrial Revolution (or, at least, an answer to ‘Why Europe?’)
Following a Twitter debate involving myself, Gabe Mathy, Pseudoerasmus, and Anton Howes on the theory that high wages in England induced labor-saving technologies and led to the Industrial Revolution, I thought [ … ]
The oligarch advantage. And Trump
In my last post I described the ‘type’ characteristics of Trump political legitimacy, he has popular appeal, a form of charisma, a power that will giveth and taketh away. It’s [ … ]
Legitimacy of political leadership, and Trump
There are three types of legitimacy for political leadership: Hereditary power based on family. Son of the king becomes king. If the son of a great king is a loser, [ … ]
The Real Exchange Rates and Trade Literature
Noah Smith asks about the literature on the real exchange rate (RER) and trade. My own main line of research is about RERs and manufacturing (also here on workers), RER measurement, and [ … ]
Wanted. Expert on all things. No experience required
1000 pic = 1000 words…
The Authoritarian Impulse: Getting What We Really Don’t Want
As a society crumbles, as bitter divisions grow and disorder spreads and nothing seems to work, anger comes and people begin to want a man who will say “Enough!” and [ … ]
Some International Data on Industrial Robots
Via Adam Tooze on Twitter. The picture quality is poor, but here it is below. The US in fact has fewer robots than Germany and Japan, and yet manufacturing employment [ … ]