It’s good to see that Bill Simmons at ESPN is giving economists their due by providing space for Tyler Cowen and Kevin “Angus” Grier’s occasional meanderings. This week, Cowen and Grier discuss whether “Moneyball” (that is, reliance on quantitative techniques) still works in Major League Baseball. Certainly, this is a topic we’ve covered here extensively. Oh, and here, …
David Leonhardt has set the kindergarten teachers’ portion of the internet afire with his provocative New York Times piece, “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers.” He cites some recent research that finds unusual importance of the kindergarten year to adult outcomes, and in particular the importance of good teachers. Students who had learned much more …
It’s the middle of the summer, and it’s time to check in with the I&E Reading Group. This summer, we have Michael Lewis’ Moneyball and Louis Menand’s Marketplace of Ideas. If you need a copy of either, I know we have them at The Mudd. For our first book, Lewis provides us with a look …
Central bankers in all major developed economies have adopted NIRP, ZIRP, or near ZIRP policies. The Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank now “offer” negative interest rates (NIRP) on reserves and project to do so for the foreseeable future. The Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States remain …
In 2003, Michael Lewis published Moneyball, the story of how a team with a relative small payroll (the Oakland Athletics) was able to be competitive by understanding how a general manager (Billy Beane) should spend money to generate the most wins. Many major league baseball teams now apply some of the strategies that Beane adopted …
The new Lawrence Today showed up in my mailbox today, and as promised I have provided another few hundred words on the dynamics of the college wage premium. You can click here to read my post on what exactly “composition-adjusted log real wages” means, along with a discussion about the trajectory of U.S. wages over …
With reunion upon us, it is an excellent time to ask, “why go to college?” Indeed. To help us out with that question, Louis Menand has a provocative piece in a recent New Yorker examining the ins and outs of this exact question. As I got a few paragraphs into this one I started to …
Now that Commencement has passed, we can get on with our summers. For me, that means I can try to take a bite out of the big, tasty stack of books I have been accumulating over the past 9 months. These are my picks: Michael Lewis, The Big Short. Almost anything by Lewis is fun …
In a recent issue of Vanity Fair (of all places), Michael Lewis (of Moneyball, the Blind Side, and The Big Short fame) describes the rise and fall of the economy of Ireland. He highlights several major policy mistakes made by those in power for which they were soundly thrashed in the Irish election yesterday. Lewis’s …
Looking to pick up some reading recommendations for the upcoming Reading Period? My pick is Tyler Cowen’s e-book, The Great Stagnation, which has been something of a sensation since its release (if by sensation you mean, which I do, a bunch of economists and policy wonks have been reading and reviewing it). Plenty of buzz …
A couple of final words on the summer I&E Reading Group selection, Moneyball. As was argued by Michael Lewis, Billy Beane capitalized by exploiting what appeared to be a market inefficiency. Indeed, economists Jahn Hakes and Skip Sauer found empirical support for this proposition . An interesting question, then, is why other teams didn’t innovate …
Given the dwindling attendance in my courses, either the weather has become appreciably better, Midwestern style, or Professor Finkler is giving another macro exam. Both are sure signs that summer is just around the corner. That means it’s time to unveil the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Reading Group‘s summer books. The first book comes recommended from …
Michael Lewis is one of our generation’s most influential business writers, having penned the Wall Street classic Liar’s Poker (even I read that one), the professional sports classic Moneyball (hey, I read that one, too), along with assorted other gems on the would-be masters of the universe (here’s a page-turner about Iceland ). Why am …
