| Dick Langlois | Some of you may have seen Steven Pinker’s review of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book in the New York Times this weekend.. Pinker praises Gladwell’s writing and his instinct for interesting topics, but skewers him for his bad grasp of the underlying science ... Read more

| Lasse B. Lien | Ideally, the competitive process would select for productivity. I doesn’t actually do that. Presumably it selects for expected profitability, which is close enough -assuming market power isn’t too common. What has the economy been selecting for in the past year or so? The ... Read more

| Peter Klein | Useful information for undergraduate instructors, provided by students, from the Chronicle (via Ross Emmett). Sample: There is no need to put those “just for fun” optional readings on the syllabus. We will never read them. If I even see the word “option ... Read more

| Peter Klein | Speaking of Peters , the McKinsey Quarterly site has a video interview with the late Peter Bernstein on risk. Bernstein was a deep thinker and an excellent writer . I once found myself on a plane next to an investment banker who was reading Bernstein’s Against ... Read ... Read more

| Peter Klein | A reader objected to my recent portrayal of Keynes as a crank, as a man who never really studied economics or took it very seriously. Note that I never denied Keynes’s intellect, his great skill as a rhetorician, or his personal charm. But Keynesian economics is, in ... Read more

| Peter Klein | Geoff Manne to me and others: “The Intel-AMD settlement, over an alleged Sherman Act Section 2 violation, seems to violate Section 1 of the same act. I’ve written an informed and thoughtful blog post on this. What do you think?” Me: “This is further ... Read more

| Peter Klein | Peter Drucker, that is. The great management guru died in 2005 — and even then, he didn’t blog, unlike some other guys named Peter. If Drucker were alive today, what would he say about the financial crisis, health-care reform, climate change, and the other Big Issue ... Read more

| Peter Klein | The man indeed has a unique talent, as described here by the witty and clever Steve Landsburg : It’s always impressive to see one person excel in two widely disparate activities: a first-rate mathematician who’s also a world class mountaineer, or a titan of industry wh ... Read more

| Peter Klein | I’ve written before on Fed “independence” and why I don’t support it. The vast majority of economists, especially the more prominent ones, have  come out in favor of independence, and against Congressional attempts to limit the Fed’s discretion ... Read more