Articles

Inflation, the euro crisis – for years there has been one worry hype after another. Yet fear frequently turns out to be wrong. We need a committee of wise men in charge of dealing with the real risks.

What we’re reading: As the shock of the UK referendum vote to leave the European Union continues to roil, a number of analysts see it as revealing dynamics of which all Western policymakers ought to be aware

The economic historian would have seen the British vote to leave the European Union as part of a larger drama of centralization versus pluralism

Why a British vote to leave the European Union would have consequences far larger than the UK’s proportional share of the global economy might suggest

Remarks at a memorial service for pioneering financial analyst Jack Treynor Memorial, MIT Chapel, June 19, 2016

The company’s focus on stock buybacks to increase shareholder value is a reminder of why so much of the value created daily by millions of workers ends up in the hands of the billionaires

Anxiety over human labor being replaced by cyborgs may be in vogue, but it’s overblown — machines may help us achieve healthier and more meaningful lives

Mass protests challenging the government to focus on job-creation rather than on market liberalization and trade deals may carry a cautionary message to Western policy makers, too.

From 1958 onward, the back cover of Paul Samuelson’s bestselling textbook, Economics, showed a family-tree of economists. The diagram’s evolution, in particular its use of the term “mainstream economics,” reflected, and, I speculate, influenced how economists came to perceive the structure of their discipline.

What we’re reading: A weekly scan of published items relevant to the Institute’s work