Crap avoidance rather than an orgy of optimisation
Some of the most interesting academic work comes from collisions and overlaps between diverse fields and disciplines. As the dust begins to settle from the financial crisis Economics IMO needs to listen and draw more from Psychology, History and Biology. We need less Maths and more humanity and we can do much from approaching knotty policy dilemmas from different points of view.
In this spirit, Rory Sutherland the “Fat bloke at Ogilvy” gave a fascinating and illuminating talk on some of the lessons of behavioural economics applied to the world of advertising and marketing in his talk at the LSE this afternoon - it was totally worth the train journey into London to hear a speaker whose positive engagement with his audience put others to shame. How refreshing it was to hear from a speaker undaunted and unaffected by the doctrines of classical economic thinking.
Here is a snapshot of Rory’s journey through some great microeconomics!
read more...»Rated: 
(5/5), based on 3 reviews
Climate Crunch - Making the Economics Fit
The erstwhile environmental campaigner, journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Porritt gave an impassioned talk on the politics and economics climate change at the LSE tonight. We are in a period of extraordinary turmoil in the global politics of climate change. Here in the UK, support for the idea of man-made climate change is actually lower at the end of 2009 despite one of the most expensive government information TV and cinema campaigns ever launched. But by and large, people seem to be turned off by the warnings of scary apocalyptic misery.
read more...»Focus on the National Minimum Wage
This blog provides some updated links on the minimum wage - a government intervention in the labour market.
read more...»Jimmy’s Global Harvest
A warm woolly hat tip to Himesh Patel from the Heathland School, Hounslow for spotting this superb resource that will be available for a while on the BBC iPlayer. Himesh points out that Jimmy’s Global Harvest: Brazil on BBC1 last night was an excellent epsiode that explained how Brazil produces biofuels using its crop harvest. The show goes through the full production phase from harvest to final product. If you teach anyone sitting the AS Micro paper next week, it is extremely useful for the evaluation of biofuels as an alternative to traditional fossil fuel energy. In addition it is pitched at the correct level enabling access for all students. The link is here Pay particular attention from 22.12 mins (where the biofuel begins). Definately something to recommend students to watch.
Google Wave: Reforms to the EU CAP
These are notes from the latest Google Wave on reforms to the European Union’s system of farm support. A pdf file of the latest version of this wave can be downloaded below.
How Markets Fail - the logic of economic calamities
A huge number of well-known economists and a remarkable number of ideas make an appearance in John Cassidy’s new book How Markets Fail – the logic of economic calamities. From Akerlof and Arrow to Von Neumann and Walras, John Cassidy’s ambitious and lucid work takes us on a swift journey through over two hundred years of economic thought and policy-making through to the moment when the global financial system stared over the abyss in the early autumn of 2008.
read more...»Google Wave - Europe’s Ageing Population
According to the Centre for European Reform, “Europe stands on the cusp of a demographic revolution. Europe’s changing demographic profile poses political, economic and social challenges that are as important as climate change, security and globalisation.” Our latest Google wave considered some of these issues. There is a pdf file of the current wave to download which includes all of the external links.
read more...»Rated: (5/5), based on 1 review
Google Wave: Regulating Industries in the UK
The weekend wave focused on the regulatory agencies in markets and industries, the tools they have to influence prices, incentives, output and profits in different industries and some of the justifications for regulatory intervention and the downsides. We also created a cluster of good examples of competition policy in action during 2009 to bring our regulation / competition notes up to date. The main notes are below and you can also download a pdf version of the current wave - as always these waves are a work in progress!
read more...»Google Wave on Foreign Direct Investment
Our wave this week looked at some of the policies designed to encourage FDI flows and the benefits and costs of FDI for the UK economy
read more...»Taxing time for pubs
Planned increases in beer duty are likely to accelerate the pace of pub closures and lost jobs as we head into 2010. This is a good two minute BBC news video on the implications for smaller independent pubs of the recent hike in beer duty.
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