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Commented Jul 7, 2011 on Getting the global stimulus numbers right at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Getting the global stimulus numbers right
Sameer Khatiwada, a former student, writes in response to this, and it is worth highlighting it: We at the International Labour Organization (ILO) have been keeping track of the stimulus efforts of 40 countries (including the G20) for our annual report and other work. While I agree with most of...
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Commented Jul 7, 2011 on The sorry state of (macro)economics at Dani Rodrik's weblog
The sorry state of (macro)economics
The failures of contemporary macro theory remind me of the time we were interviewing a highly touted graduate student on the academic job market (I believe he was from the University of Minnesota, but I am not totally sure). We asked him how he would teach macro to public policy students at the...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on You have got to be a real trade buff to enjoy this post at Dani Rodrik's weblog
You have got to be a real trade buff to enjoy this post
Rich countries engage in international trade more than poor countries do. They also have more diversified export baskets. That much is pretty well known. But how exactly is this increase in the volume of trade and greater diversification achieved? Is it through greater volumes of exports of the...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Is a "science" of exchange rates possible? at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Is a "science" of exchange rates possible?
Economists have many elaborate and beautiful models of currency determination, but they do a terrible job explaining or predicting currency movements over any reasonable interval. Most of the time you are better off flipping a coin than having a Ph.D. in financial economics. Why is that? Roman...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on The pains from trade at Dani Rodrik's weblog
The pains from trade
The workhorse model of international trade (the 2x2 Heckscher-Ohlin model) has very stark implications for the effect of trade with poor, labor-abundant countries. Low-skilled workers in rich countries (read the U.S.) must end up as losers--not in relative terms, but in absolute terms. Moreover...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Specialization or diversification at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Specialization or diversification
One of my favorite stylized facts about development is contained in the graph below, which comes from a paper by Imbs and Wacziarg. What it shows is that as countries grow out of poverty, their economies become less specialized and more diversified. This seems to be true both across countries, ...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on High returns, low investment at Dani Rodrik's weblog
High returns, low investment
Al Harberger is the father of the Chicago boys, who took Latin American economic policy by storm during the 1970s and 1980s. He recently gave an interesting talk at the Center for Global Development, the transcript of which can be found here. The main puzzle that Harberger addresses is the very ...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Does empirical analysis ever settle a policy question? at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Does empirical analysis ever settle a policy question?
Economics has gotten intensely empirical over the last decade, which makes many of the debates on theoretical methodology and on heterodoxy versus orthodoxy frankly irrelevant. When I received my PhD in 1985, anyone who was academically ambitious and whose fields were international trade or econ...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on What is really going on in the Millennium Villages? at Dani Rodrik's weblog
What is really going on in the Millennium Villages?
These are selected villages where Jeff Sachs' ideas are being tried out. Does a large scale infusion of resources to finance complementary investments in public health, education, infrastructure and agrcultural technologies produce an escape from the poverty trap, as Sachs has argued it will? ...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on When good news for markets is bad news for the economy at Dani Rodrik's weblog
When good news for markets is bad news for the economy
The governing party in Turkey has just been re-elected with a comfortable majority of seats in the parliament, ensuring that it will return to power single-handed. Markets breathe a sigh of relief and the Turkish LIra appreciates, reaching a record high against the U.S. dollar. Good news, or ba...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Blinder and Bhagwati debate at Harvard at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Blinder and Bhagwati debate at Harvard
Is offshoring a big deal, requiring us to significantly enhance safety nets, rethink the future of education, and move upscale in the ladder of comparative advantage, as Blinder thinks? Or is there nothing new under the sun, as Bhagwati believes? The two held a debate this afternoon at Harvard, a...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Getting it right on foreign aid at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Getting it right on foreign aid
The Center for Global Development's Nancy Birdsall takes on her colleague Arvind Subramanian on foreign aid. Subramanian had argued in the Wall Street Journal that aid destined for health and other social projects may detract resources and attention from economic growth. Birdsall argues these t...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Clive on Hillary on Trade at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Clive on Hillary on Trade
Hillary Clinton has some generally sensible things to say on trade in today's FT, for which Clive Crook takes her to task. Basically, Hillary's point is that we need to take a breather from negotiating trade agreements on the accepted model, and think our way through what a new set of trade rela...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Teaching blues at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Teaching blues
I just looked at my teaching evaluations for my international trade course this Fall, and it was a bit like taking a cold shower. Frankly, I was expecting a big improvement from previous years, after the work I had put into redesigning it. But it wasn't to be. Looking at the detailed comments, ...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Give "A Farewell to Alms" credit at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Give "A Farewell to Alms" credit
by Ricardo Hausmann, guest blogger I read Greg Clark's book [A Farewell to Alms] and really liked it. The book is much more effective in destroying previous explanations for the transition to modern growth than it is in proposing a viable alternative. But this is something that Clark acknowledge...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on What multilateralism means in Washington at Dani Rodrik's weblog
What multilateralism means in Washington
Mark Thoma brings up IMF' new policy of surveillance on exchange-rate policies and quotes from a piece by IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato on the subject. He refers to an earlier post of mine and encourages me to return to the topic as I had promised. I will do that at some point, but for t...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on On the dynamic effects of trade at Dani Rodrik's weblog
On the dynamic effects of trade
Steve Randy Waldman has a terrific post on the ongoing debate on free trade. He refers to a passage in Tyler Cowen's recent post on the same subject which caught my attention. This is what Cowen says: More empirically, having your export prices bid up is a wonderful driver of growth more than...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on A cultural/biological explanation for the Industrial Revolution? at Dani Rodrik's weblog
A cultural/biological explanation for the Industrial Revolution?
Greg Clark has written a book that offers a different perspective on why the Industrial Revolution happened and the West got rich before the rest. The main argument of the book runs counter to most of today's theories, including ones that put the emphasis on property right and high-quality insti...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Roberto Mangabeira Unger goes to Brasilia at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Roberto Mangabeira Unger goes to Brasilia
It seems like stuff out of a dream. My Harvard Law School colleague Roberto Mangabeira Unger, at once the most erudite and impenetrable man I know, has just been appointed a minister by President Lula in Brazil. Roberto will be heading a new ministry called, improbably, “the special secretari...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Even good economists sometimes go astray at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Even good economists sometimes go astray
and today's example is Austan Goolsbee (as reported by George Will): Goolsbee ... says globalization is responsible for "a small fraction" of today's income disparities. He says "60 to 70 percent of the economy faces virtually no international competition." America's 18.5 million government emp...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Some papers make me feel old at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Some papers make me feel old
A good friend told me once that he enjoyed my blog, but that I should stay away from posts that are too self-centered or else risk developing a syndrome he associated with another economist blogger who shall remain nameless. I have tried to heed his advice since. But what is a blog for if you a...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on New thinking on growth and development policy at Dani Rodrik's weblog
New thinking on growth and development policy
That is the title of an executive program I teach in, along with colleagues Ricardo Hausmann, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Sendhil Mullainathan, Rohini Pande, Lant Pritchett, and Chuck Sabel. It is also the reason that it has been a slow week blogging-wise for me (in case you have been wonde...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Industrial policy as picking stocks? at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Industrial policy as picking stocks?
The most sophisticated critique that I have heard of industrial policy comes from Larry Summers, and it goes something like this. Think of industrial policy like picking stocks. Just because there are some investors who are really good at spotting opportunities and making money by beating the ma...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on My early life as a political scientist at Dani Rodrik's weblog
My early life as a political scientist
When I applied to Harvard College as a high school senior from Turkey, I wrote on my application form that I wanted to major in electrical engineering. Huh? Wake up Dani, there is no electrical engineering major at Harvard College! Nonetheless, I was admitted, through some quirk of the Harvard ...
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Commented Jun 9, 2011 on Fifteen commandments for and about economics at Dani Rodrik's weblog
Fifteen commandments for and about economics
YouNotSneaky! is very wise, judging from his "12" commandments for and about economists: 1. The answer to most questions in economics is usually “It depends”. 2. People respond to incentives, but incentives are determined in their own head and who knows what goes on in there. 3. But on average, ...
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