The International Economic Association is holding its next World Congress in the best possible location (Istanbul) on June 25-29, 2008. Here is the poster. If you are a professional economist and have not already committed to something else on those dates, you'd be crazy to miss it.

... is here. (Hat tip to Murat Iyigun.) The good news for economists is that their training allows them just as easily to minimize happiness as it does to maximize it. And no, I don't think that's what we have been doing all along.

... is here. (Hat tip to Murat Iyigun.) The good news for economists is that their training allows them just as easily to minimize happiness as it does to maximize it. And no, I don't think that's what we have been doing all along.

Mark Thoma points us to an excellent review by Angus Deaton of the controversy surrounding the Stern climate report. Much of the discussion on the report has revolved around Stern's use of a very small discount rate, on the ethical assumption that we have no reason to value the wellbeing of a fu...

There is no shortage of polls on how people around the world feel about globalization, but here is one that asks a somewhat different question: what do you think about the pace at which economic globalization has been advancing? It turns out that in a majority of countries, most people feel econ...

Never appear on a TV interview without checking up on your host. (Actually in my case, never appear on a TV show, period.) My colleague Jeffrey Frankel explains in his inaugural blog entry. Read and weep.

I am embarrassed to learn this late, just today, that the Michigan economist and all-around decent person Jan Svejnar has been combating the Thatcherite Vaclav Klaus for the presidency of the Czech Republic. In the last round of parliamentary vote held today Klaus received 139 and Svejnar 113 v...

I am teaching this stuff this week, and while I enjoy doing it and think it is important for students to know--no World Bank country economic memorandum is apparently complete without a sources-of-growth exercise--I wonder what purpose it really serves. These accounting exercises come in two fla...

Tom Palley wrote last week a review of my One Economics, Many Recipes, and some people have asked me to comment on it. On the whole, I have very little to complain about: Tom's review is gracious and probably gives me more credit than I deserve. But he does take me to task for pushing the "One...

Until very recently, if you spent anytime thinking about development policy, the chances are that you fell into one of three groups. One group believes the problem with developing countries is lack of resources. So the solution is a vast increase in foreign aid. A second group believes the rea...

The WTO has made a ruling that Chinese import surcharges on car parts violate WTO rules. This is the first time that the WTO has ruled against China since the country joined in 2001. China's intention with the policy was clearly to discourage imports of car parts and thereby encourage upstream p...

by Jeffry Frieden (DR note: Some time ago, I posted an entry called Why I don't do political economy any more where I said that I had lost interest in political economy because it presumes we know what the efficient policies are and because it leaves too little room for human agency. This is Je...

An MPAID graduate writes me: I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for sending my resume to ... 2 years ago.... I love my job mainly because I get to do what I studied at the MPAID and most importantly do these things with the perspective that you've provided me via PED101. It's amazi...

A lot, actually. If you think lack of formal rules (in property rights or contract enforcement) always constrains economic activity, watch this. And if you think an improvement in formal institutional rules always improves efficiency, watch this. These are the videos I had embedded in my prese...

I have often read or heard the assertion that there is no respectable work by economists that attributes an important part of rising inequality in the U.S. to international trade, with the implication being that it's all (or mostly) due to skill-biased technological change. Greg Mankiw has made ...

by Murat Iyigun, guest blogger Listening to Angus Deaton’s dead-on critique of the current state of the literature on health and development at an AEA session this past weekend, I could not help but think about the costs and benefits of methodology fads in our profession in general, and growth &...

Want to know why "best practices" are an unhelpful way to think about institutional reform? How to improve contract enforcement without doing more harm than good? Why the World Bank's Doing Business Surveys can lead you astray about reform priorities? Why outward orientation is often achieved b...

I am not a fan such indices, but here is an index that is innovative in that it tries to measure not just economic globalization, but also "social" and "political" globalization. You can use the site to query the data base and generate your own custom tables and charts. Report back your favorite...

Seventy-five percent of Mozambican physicians practice abroad, mostly in Portugal. The corresponding numbers for Ghana and Cameroon are 56% and 46% respectively. This according to numbers put together by Michael Clemens and Gunilla Petterson at the Center for Global Development. How alarmed shou...

Deep thought of the day comes from Gurcharan Das, Indian businessman and author. Here he is comparing his country to China: "We have law, they have order."

Does Mitt Romney really believe this, or is he so desperate that he will say whatever he thinks will work: Here in Michigan, the skies are cloudy all day, the trees are all the right height, people talk without an accent and most of the cars on the road are American made — as they ought to be. ...

by Arvind Subramanian, guest blogger Why did nearly 15 years have to elapse before GDP data were updated? The World Bank’s statisticians have changed the economic facts. Under these circumstances, Keynes, the economist, would have us change our opinions, while the great scientist, Einstein, woul...

On insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs), at least. There has been an ongoing battle between Sachs and segments of the global public health community on the appropriate delivery mechanisms for ITNs. The efficacy of ITNs in preventing malaria exposure is not in question. What has been debated is...

Andrew Leonard tallies the latest round of cash infusion into Wall Street from state investors: Citigroup: $7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and $6.88 billion from Government Investment Corp. of Singapore. Morgan Stanley: $5 billion from China Investment Corp. Merrill-Lynch: $5 ...

Steven Landsburg has some good points to make about why trade-induced changes in income distribution should not automatically call forth compensation for the losers. We accept such losses (and offer no compensation) in too many other circumstances--for example, when technological progress leave...