Assigned Readings: Blog Posts

By 2d Class:

• There’s One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don’t
• The Logarithmic Harmony of Percent Changes and Growth Rates
• How to Avoid Another NASDAQ Meltdown: Slow Down Trading (to Only 20 Times Per Second)

By 3d Class:

• Balance Sheet Monetary Policy: A Primer

By 4th Class:

• “The Hunger Games” is Hardly Our Future—It’s Already Here

By 5th Class (I know this is a lot; read through quickly just to get background and ideas of what to say in blog posts you write about the Fed’s decision on January 29, 2013.)

• Mike Konczal: What Constrains the Federal Reserve? An Interview with Joseph Gagnon
• The supplysideliberal Review of the FOMC Monetary Policy Statement: June 20th, 2012
• Justin Wolfers on the 6/20/2012 FOMC Statement
• Fed Transparency and Obscurantism
• Joe Gagnon on the Internal Struggles of the Federal Reserve Board
• Let’s Have an End to “End the Fed!”
• Ann Saphir on How a Fed Inflation Hawk Changed His Mind
• Greg Mankiw on the Economy, Fed
• Read His Lips: Why Ben Bernanke Had to Set Firm Targets for the Economy
• Four More Years! The US Economy Needs a Third Term of Ben Bernanke
• Three Big Questions for Larry Summers, Janet Yellen, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Head the Fed
• Talk Ain’t Cheap: You Should Expect Overreaction When the Fed Makes a Mess of Explaining Its Plans
• Janet Yellen is Hardly a Dove—She Knows the US Economy Needs Some Unemployment
• Make No Mistake about the Taper—the Fed Wishes It Could Stimulate the Economy More

By 6th Class (These posts are a little heavier and require a bit more careful reading than those for the 5th class)

• John Taylor is Wrong: The Fed is Not Causing Another Recession
• Contra John Taylor
• Ben Bernanke on Why the Fed Has an Inflation Target of 2%
• Ben Bernanke: The Fed Does Less Monetary Stimulus Than It Thinks Is Warranted Because It Is Afraid of the Side Effects of Unconventional Tools
• David Beckworth—Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: 3 Quasi-Natural Experiments
• Symbol Wanted: Maybe Europe’s Unity Doesn’t Rest on Its Currency. Joint Mission to Mars, Anyone?

By 7th Class

• Actually, There Was Some Real Policy in Obama’s Speech

By 8th Class

• How Governments Can and Should Beat Bitcoin at Its Own Game
• The Story of Ben the Money Master (read-aloud YouTube video)
• Gather ’round, Children, Here’s How to Heal a Wounded Economy

By 9th Class

• America’s Big Monetary Policy Mistake: How Negative Interest Rates Could Have Stopped the Great Recession in Its Tracks
• Interview by Dylan Matthews for Wonkblog: “Can We Get Rid of Inflation and Recessions Forever?” (Link fixed to go the the full interview.)
• The Good Neighbor Policy: Negative Interest Rates
• Paul Krugman Graphs How the Zero Lower Bound Has Affected Monetary Policy (“Changing Circumstances, Graphed”)

By 10th Class

• International Finance: A Primer

By 11th Class

• Enkhjargal Lkhagvajav: John Taylor is Wrong—Inequality *Is* Holding Back the Recovery (On This One, Please Read the Comments, Too!)
• Getting the Biggest Bang for the Buck in Fiscal Policy

By 12th Class

• The Medium-Run Natural Interest Rate and the Short-Run Natural Interest Rate

By 14th Class

• Show Me the Money
• Reply to Bill Woolsey on the Possibility of Ending Recessions and Ending Inflation with Electronic Money and Negative Interest Rates

By 16th Class

• Jessica Hammer: The World Poverty Situation is Better Than You Think
• Joseph Simon: Detroit Continues Its Comeback
• Kathryn Schultz: Consumer Debt in the Short Run and in the Long Run
• Zane Salem: How to Boost US Exports

By 17th Class (March 12, 2014)

• On the Great Recession

By 19th Class (March 19, 2014)

• Dan Molinski in WSJ–Weak Peso Waters Colombia’s Garden:
  Nation Welcomes a Drop in Its Currency; a Boon to Exports

• Could the UK Be the First Country to Adopt Electronic Money?

By 20th Class

• How the Electronic Deutsche Mark Can Save Europe
• Jessica Hammer: Venezuela’s Deadly Struggle

By 21st Class (March 26, 2014)

• Meet the Fed’s New Intellectual Powerhouse
• Haozhao Zhang: The US Should Counter Russia’s Natural Gas Weapon With Its Own

By 22d Class (March 31, 2014)

• Chris Chegash: College Athletes Deserve a Better Deal
• Chenrui Gao: It’s Time to Let Direct Selling Disrupt Our Expensive System of Car Dealerships

By 23d Class (April 2, 2014)

• Why My Retirement Savings Accounts are Currently 100% in the Stock Market

By 24th Class (April 7, 2014) 

• Will the ECB Go Negative?
• Yuan Tian: Will the Real Estate Bubble Burst in China?

By 26th Class (April 14, 2014)

• The Shakeup at the Minneapolis Fed and the Battle for the Soul of Macroeconomics—Again (On rational expectations)
• Dimitry Slavin: U.S. Stocks Are Not in a Bubble and Here’s Why
• Robert Shiller: Against the Efficients Market’s Theory

By Last Class (April 21, 2014)

• Getting the Biggest Bang for the Buck in Fiscal Policy
• Why the US Needs Its Own Sovereign Wealth Fund
• How to Stabilize the Financial System and Make Money for US Taxpayers
• Roger Farmer and Miles Kimball on the Value of Sovereign Wealth Funds for Economic Stabilization
• Robert Flood and Miles Kimball on the Status of the Efficient Markets Theory
• Pranav Krishnan: Fighting European Deflation with Negative Interest Rates
• Max Huppertz—The Decline in Labor Force Participation: Speed Bump, Hysteresis, or “I, Robot”?