Next to “no free lunch,” perhaps the most important idea in an economics tool kit is “unintended consequences.” Our story starts in Bogota, Colombia and a visiting professor wh…
Election Economics: Too Much or Not Enough Stimulus Spending?
For the first quarter of 2009, GDP declined at a 5.5% rate and, at 7.6% during January, unemployment was rising. With the economy in a tailspin, policy makers wanted to act quickly. Primarily split al…
A New Kind of Keynesian?
Reading about John Maynard Keynes’s investing acumen in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, I wondered whether being a Keynesian could involve more than your attitude about the role of go…
Unopened Stimulus Packages
Economists recently have been debating whether the $787 billion 2009 stimulus package has helped the economy. Perhaps first they should ask what has been spent. For a variety of reasons, recipients of…