Romer's Waves.

Paul Romer's "The Trouble With Macroeconomics" gave the blogosphere heaps to comment.

You didn't read Romer's paper? No worries! Noah Smith ("The New Heavyweight Macro Critics", September 14) summarises it, in a Reader's Digest kind of way. What does Smith think about it? Hard to say, other than "Ouch. He also calls various typical DSGE model elements names like 'phlogiston', 'aether', and 'caloric' " Smith remains safely non-committal ("committal" would sound dangerously like "commie", I suppose). Maybe one could sum up his view as "totally awesome, dude".

Romer's Magical Creatures.

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I ain’t no economist. So, it is more with a kind of morbid fascination than with any real deep understanding that I have been following Paul Romer’s critique of economics.

Things began last year, with “Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth”, when Prof. Romer took aim at growth theory (one of his areas of expertise). Now, with “The Trouble with Macroeconomics” he extends his critique to macroeconomics (particularly to RBC and the much maligned DSGE).

Bits and Pieces (ix)

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Julia Baird (above) writes that educated, qualified and experienced professional women lacking self-confidence should follow the example of much more confident, but less educated, less qualified and less experienced white male colleagues:

Liberal Democracies' Debates.

[A]

If you are a discontent with capitalism, globalization, and/or free trade chances are you’ve found the exact phrase “lifted millions of people out of poverty” as a predicate in a sentence with capitalism, globalization, and/or free trade as subject.