Reading

Created
Sat, 23/04/2022 - 03:13
Otmar Issing can look back on a long and consequential central banking career. Even in his retirement he is still living the part, evaluating whether his successors at the European Central Bank are pursuing stability-oriented monetary policies to his liking. His most recent critique (“‘Living in a fantasy’: euro’s founding father rebukes ECB over inflation […]
Created
Sat, 23/04/2022 - 00:03
More than a decade after the 2009 crisis, the standards of living of the Greek population are still contracting and the prospects are gloomy. In this policy note, Vlassis Missos, Research Associate Nikolaos Rodousakis, and George Soklis deal with how to approach the measurement of income loss and poverty in Greece and argue for the use of household disposable income (HDI) in estimating adjustments, which offers a more accurate appreciation of the burden falling on the Greek population.
Created
Fri, 22/04/2022 - 05:48
This update is to let you know about a new essay that’s now online in in-press form: “Differential Perspectives: Epistemic Disconnects Surrounding the US Census Bureau’s Use of Differential Privacy.” Click here to read the full essay. When the U.S. Census Bureau announced its intention to modernize its disclosure avoidance procedures for the 2020 Census, it sparked […]
Created
Thu, 21/04/2022 - 06:56


One of my lesser-known, early-career gigs in the 1990s was serving as editorial cartoonist for High Times magazine. Looking back, it’s amazing to think how much has changed in terms of marijuana laws, medical or otherwise. Here’s a cartoon of mine from back in the day, which can be sung to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (ie “Everybody Must Get Stoned”). Happy 420 to all who choose to partake!

Created
Wed, 20/04/2022 - 12:16

This election will be won by the Coalition and Prime Minister Scott Morrison if the economic models perform as expected – and they usually do.

A model refined in 2000 by then Melbourne University economists Lisa Cameron and Mark Crosby found that most federal election results in records going back to 1901 can be predicted pretty well by just two economic indicators.

And they are not the indicators that might be expected.

Created
Mon, 18/04/2022 - 04:38

A first look at Doctor Who’s feature-length Centenary special, and Jodie Whittaker’s final episode, has revealed the return of the Doctor’s biggest adversary – The Master (Sacha Dhawan), who last appeared in series 12’s final episode The Timeless Children

And for the first time since the show returned to BBC One in 2005, The Master, the Daleks and the Cybermen will all feature in one single story.

Created
Sat, 16/04/2022 - 03:37

Fans of this website will perhaps remember a certain house from the “worst of suburban Illinois” post. I’m here to alert you to the fact that the interior of said house may in fact be the pinnacle of what has been dubbed by my colleague Cocaine Decor as “Cocaine Decor.” This 1990 house has lived rent free in my brain for a while, and now it will live rent free in all of yours. It sits at $1.1 million USD and precisely 10,000 square feet, each of which exists in ignorance of the Light of God.

Remember her? I wish I didn’t. Anyway.

Created
Sat, 16/04/2022 - 02:22
Starting from the seminal works of Wynne Godley (1999; Godley and Lavoie 2005, 2007a, 2007b), the literature adopting stock-flow consistent (SFC) models for two or more countries has been flourishing, showing that consistently taking into account real and financial markets of two open economies will generate different results with respect to more traditional open economy models. However, few contributions, if any, have modeled two regions in the same country, and our paper aims at filling this gap.
Created
Thu, 14/04/2022 - 17:45
I guess it’s appropriate that we can’t agree on what the brain worms metaphor’s original vehicle actually is. In his description of the Internet culture term, Max Read claims, reasonably, that the originals are maybe like tapeworms or toxoplasma. But I always think about the Ceti Eel in Wrath of Khan (but then, I’m always thinking of Wrath of Khan, especially, these […]
Created
Wed, 13/04/2022 - 12:13

When Labor leader Anthony Albanese couldn’t say whether the unemployment rate was 5% or 4% on Monday, he might have had a point.

It’s 4%. But for a decade – the entire decade leading up to COVID – it never strayed too far from five-point-something per cent.

Melbourne University labour market specialist Jeff Borland points out that in March 2010, Australia’s unemployment rate was 5.4%. Ten years later, before COVID changed things in March 2020, it was 5.3%.