Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Some lessons in economics


Brad Delong has a post today, that describes his toy model to explain why capital gains in the stock market lag the real economy (or something like that). I am not able to get the link to his post right now, so you will have to get it yourself!

The second link for today is is to a post by Daniel Davies over at Crooked Timber, who discusses Peter Griffiths's book "An Economist's Tale". Just a quick quote from the post:

The book is a detailed case study of what Griffiths did when he was working for the government of Sierra Leone during a period when the World Bank suddenly got the free market religion. It’s a fantastic read, and by reading it you will get two valuable pieces of information; you’ll understand what economic consultants (those people whose jobs are advertised in the front bits of the Economist) actually do for a living, and you’ll understand the exact why and wherefore of what it is that people are complaining about when they protest against the Bretton Woods institutions and the Washington Consensus.