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Betting against the US default
CNN Money reports that investors are betting on a US default. This isn't unusual as bets like these were already in place during August 2011, when the chances of default by reaching the debt ceiling...
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Graph(s) of the week: European values
A few months ago I was sent a link to this interesting interactive webpage called the Atlas of European Values. Breezing through it I found quite a few interesting facts about cross-country differences...
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Two years of blogging
This day marks the second birthday of the "Don't worry, I'm an economist" blog. Last year's celebration was marked by stressing out some of the best and most popular posts. Back then I reminded the...
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Fama, Hansen, and Shiller winners of the 2013 Nobel prize in economics
The 2013 Sveriges Riksbanks Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded to three recipients for their empirical analysis of asset prices: Eugene Fama, University of Chicago;...
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Video of the week: Costs of the US government shutdown
Bloomberg has an informative video on the costs of the US government shutdown. Their main point comes down to how much has the uncertainty over political decisions cost the US economy so far since...
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"Yes, Economics is a science, but many economists are not scientists!"
This title is actually taken from Paul Krugman. For once I agree with him.Krugman's blog came as a response to a great text by this year's John Bates Clark medal recipient Raj Chetty from Harvard....
View ArticleTaleb's antifragility and pseudostability
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, most famous for his bestselling brilliant book "The Black Swan", published a new book last year - "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", where he presents a rather...
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Doing business
The newest Doing Business Report 2014 once again sheds light on where in the world opening and owning a business is a welcomed venture, and where you would be better of not being in the private sector...
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Gated globalization?
In one of last month issues of the Economist, they opened up quite an interesting topic on how the consequences of the financial crisis have affected globalization. As we all know an immediate reaction...
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Creative destruction reversed
Bryan Caplan found a disturbing graph from Edmund Phelps's new book "Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge and Change":Source: Brian Caplan, taken from Phelps: Mass...
View ArticleVideo of the week: playing with stats
From TED talks comes this excellent presentation delivered by Hans Rosling, a professor of global health at Karolinska Institute (the institution that decides upon the Nobel prize in medicine). The...
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Blogging on pause
You might have noticed that blogging activity has been slow for the past two weeks. This was due to me getting married this weekend to my, by now wife Barbara. With the honeymoon ahead of us, blogging...
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A short guide for attracting foreign investments
Flying back home from my honeymoon, I had to catch a connecting flight in Istanbul where at the airport I noticed a very interesting billboard. Here's what it said: "Want to cut costs? Invest in...
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The great rise in living standards
If one were to ask a question "What was the greatest achievement of mankind?" what would the logical answer be? The invention of electricity (light bulb)? The internal combustion engine? Penicillin?...
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Economic history: Factors behind the Great Divergence
All too often during poor economic times many debunked economic fallacies of the past get reinvented. The reason is simple: a search for ideas and solutions alternative to the "mainstream" (however we...
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Economic history: mercantilism and international trade
All too often during poor economic times many debunked economic fallacies of the past get reinvented. The reason is simple: a search for ideas and solutions alternative to the "mainstream" (however we...
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Graph(s) of the week: The year in review
The Economist ends the year with a series of eye-catching charts characterizing the state of last year's recovery. We are all still aware of the recovery being a slow and painful one (in some places...
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Prognosis: Negative - or How close were my predictions for 2013?
Last year, a few days before the year ended I embarked in a bold quest of making predictions on economic and political outcomes in the year to come, facing the risk of making a fool of myself by...
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2014: Recovery or bust?
Happy new year to all my readers!Last year's first post, conveniently called "The day after", started off with an analysis of what happened in the final hours of 2012 in the negotiations between...
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Short-selling explained (case study: movie "Trading Places")
After seeing the movie "Trading Places" (1983), starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, for the thousandth time during the holiday season, I decided to write a quick post explaining what happened at the...
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