Download: PDF | EPUB They did not mind stating apparently opposed truths; they knew that they could give to men a higher truth, in which the contradictories became two sides of the same truth. — Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, 1872 Whenever inflation rears its head, the call soon comes to raise interest rates. The rationale is simple. Higher interest rates put a damper on the supply of money. And this monetary clamp slows inflation.

Download: PDF | EPUB In my last post, I looked at the relation between economic growth and inflation. As per usual, the evidence didn’t sit well with mainstream economics. According to standard theory, there is a trade off between low inflation and high economic growth. The idea is that you can have one or the other, but not both. So if you want to keep inflation low, you have to ‘cool off’ the economy by slowing economic growth.

Download: PDF | EPUB [I]nflation in the midst of stagnation is not an anomaly. If anything, it is the general rule. — Nitzan and Bichler, 2009 As much of the world grapples with post-Covid price gouging, it seems like a good time to revisit our understanding of inflation.

And just like that, another year is over. I’ll remember 2022 as the year I unwittingly stepped into the world of pop psychology. My post on the Dunning-Kruger effect was meant as a humorous aside from my main work in political economy. Instead, that piece became my most-read post ever — pretty much dwarfing everything else I wrote in 2022. It’s an interesting demonstration of what drives attention on the internet.

Download: PDF | EPUB In November 2021, I wrote a post called ‘The Truth About Inflation’. At the time, inflation fears were heating up. And as usual, mainstream economists were missing the bus. Sure, economists pointed to the consumer price index and said, “Look, it’s going up!” But they didn’t look under the hood of this index to see the big picture. Despite what economists proclaim, inflation is not a uniform increase in prices.

Download: PDF | EPUB If an unmarked package arrived at your door, how would you figure out what was inside? The catch is that you cannot open it. As a social scientist, I deal with this ‘black-box’ problem all the time. I (metaphorically) watch people go to work at firms. And I see them come home with income. Then I try to picture the ‘machine’ that gave people money.

Download: PDF | EPUB Are you an aspiring academic? If so, this manual will reveal the secret to maximizing your scholarly output. Follow my advice, and you too can become an academic hyper-producer. The golden rule: Don’t do research Newcomers to the academy typically think that the recipe for success is to ‘do high-quality research’. Nothing could be more false.

Download: PDF | EPUB Environmentalists often argue that if we accounted for the ‘true’ costs of the fossil-fuel business, the industry would go bankrupt. While I understand this sentiment, I think the idea of ‘true’ costs is dubious. Costs exist not because they are ‘true’, but because someone has the power to enforce them. (That’s why Apple can impose a 30% commission on everything in its app store.

I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog debunking economists’ claims about productivity. Usually, I come at the problem from a fairly technical angle, meaning I break down the contradictions involved in economists’ methods. Today, I want to try a more philosophical approach. I’m going to talk about dualism — the idea that something can be two things at once.

Exciting news, readers! I’ve started a new section of this blog called Blair’s Science Desk. I’m going to use this section to post tips about doing data-driven science. In creating Science Desk, my goal is to separate two aspects of my writing. On the one hand, I like to write long pieces about original research. On the other hand, I also like to write short notes about doing science.

Download: PDF | EPUB Among leftists, predicting the end of capitalism is a favorite parlor game. For example, as a graduate student in the 2010s, I remember discovering the 1976 edition of Marx’s Capital and being struck by the introduction. Written by the Belgian Marxist Ernest Mandel, the foreword concluded that it was ‘most unlikely’ that capitalism would survive another half-century.