“The Inspiration of Saint Matthew” (Caravaggio, 1602)
I genuinely recommend these readings as entertainment and not punishment. I am conscious that most of my students do not intend to forge an academic career, and therefore my aim isn’t to develop technical capabilities, but to confront intuition and stimulate interest. I attempt to ensure a balance between three sorts of article:
- Academic journal
- Trade journal
- Popular press
Key texts are denoted with “–>”
1. The economic way of thinking
Incentives matter , Incentive compatibility
–>Becker, G.S., “The Economic Way of Looking at Life” (.pdf), Nobel Prize Lecture, 1992
Hope, J. and Fraser, R., (2003) “New Ways of Setting Rewards: The Beyond Budgeting Model” California Management Review 45(2):104-119
Sobel, Russell S. and Nesbit, Todd M., (2007) “Incentive to Drive Recklessly: Evidence from NASCAR” Southern Economic Journal, 74(1)
“Is It Time to Retire the Football Helmet?” by Reed Albergotti and Shirley S. Wang Wall Street Journal, November 11th 2009
Pope, A.T. and Tollison, R.D., (2010) ““Rubbin’ is racin”’: evidence of the Peltzman effect from NASCAR” Public Choice, 142(3-4)
2. Cost and choice
Understanding cost, Cost Curves
Bastiat, Frederic (1850) “The Broken Window” (Part I of That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen)
–> Drucker, Peter (1995), “The Information Executives Truly Need” Harvard Business Review Vol 73, Issue 1, pp.54-62
“The Origins of EVA”, Chicago Booth Magazine, Summer 1998
3. Market Equilibrium
Markets in Everything
–>Coase, Ronald H., “The Federal Communications Commission” Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 2 (Oct., 1959), pp.1-40
“The Meat Market” by Alex Tabarrok, The Wall Street Journal, January 8th 2010
“Here’s Looking at You, Kidney” by Virginia Postrel, Texas Monthly, June 2006
Market Design
–>Roth, Alvin E., “Art of designing markets”, Harvard Business Review, Oct 1st 2007
4. Prices and the knowledge problem
Price discrimination & elasticity
Hayek, Freidrich (1945) “The Use of Knowledge in Society”, American Economic Review 35(4):519-530
–> Marn, Roegner and Zawada, “Pricing new products”, The McKinsey Quarterly Issue 3, 2003
Basker, Emek “Does Wall-Mart sell inferior goods?“, Economic Inquiry, December 7th 2009
Akerlof, G.A., (2001) “Writing the “The Market for ‘Lemons’”: A Personal and Interpretive Essay” Nobel essay
5. Competition and the market process
Coase, Ronald H. 1946 “The Marginal Cost Controversy.” Economica 13: 169-82
McNulty, Paul J. 1968 “Economic Theory and the Meaning of Competition” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 82(4):639-656
Kirzner, Israel M. 1997 “Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach” Journal of Economic Literature 35:60-85
–> Sautet, Frederic, “The shaky foundations of competition law” New Zealand Law Review June 2007
6. Capital theory and recalculation
–>James, David N., (2002) “The trouble I’ve Seen”, Harvard Business Review
Cowen, Tyler and Lemke, Jayme “10 percent unemployment forever?” Foreign Policy, January 5th 2011
7. Monetary Policy
Woodford, Michael, “Revolution and Evolution in Twentieth-Century Macroeconomics” Princeton University. June 1999
Ferguson, Niall “Friedman is dead, monetarism is dead, but what about inflation??” Daily Telegraph November 19th 2006
Romer, Paul M., “Economic Growth“(.pdf) The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Liberty Fund 2007
Nelson, Edward and Schwartz, Anna “The Impact of Milton Friedman on Modern Monetary Economics: Setting the Record Straight on Paul Krugman’s ‘Who Was Milton Friedman?’”, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Working Paper 2007-048C
–> Ferguson, Niall “Wall Street Lays Another Egg?” Vanity Fair December 2008
8. Fiscal Policy
Reed, Lawrence W., (1981) “Great Myths of the Great Depression” Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Cowen, Tyler (1985) “The Marshall Plan: Myths and Realities” in Bandow, D. US Aid to the Developing World Heritage Foundation
Cochrane, John H., “Fiscal Stimulus, Fiscal Inflation, or Fiscal Fallacies?” January 29th 2009
–> Mankiw, N. Gregory, “Crisis Economics“, National Affairs, 2010
9. Public Finance
“All Eyes on Slovakia’s Flat Tax” HBS Q&A, April 2007
–> “It’s Time to Face the Fiscal Illusion” Tyler Cowen, New York Times, March 5th 2011
10. International trade and foreign exchange
Currency risk
Radelet, Steven and Sachs, Jeffrey D. “The East Asian Financial Crisis: Diagnosis, Remedies, Prospects” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity; 1998, Vol. Issue 1, p1-90
“Lessons of the Russian Crisis for Transition Economies” Yegor Gaidar Finance and Development, Vol. 36, No. 2 (June 1999)
Hervey, Jack L., and Merkel, Loula S., (2001) “In defense of the US current account deficit” McKinsey Quarterly No. 2
–> “A Case Study of a Currency Crisis: The Russian Default of 1998 ” (.pdf) Abbigail J. Chiodo and Michael T. Owyang, 2002, The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
11. Behavioural economics
Fama, E., (1970) “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work” The Journal of Finance, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 383-417
Shleifer, Andrei and Summers, Larry (1990) “The Noise Trader Approach to Finance” Journal of Economic Perspectives 4:19-33
–> Lambert, Craig “The Marketplace of Perceptions”, Harvard Magazine, March-April 2006
“6 Logical Fallacies That Cost You Money Every Day” By Dan Seitz, Cracked.com, January 19th 2010
“How Call Centers Use Behavioural Economics to Sway Customers“, Matt Dixon and Nicholas Toman, HBR Blog, July 13th 2010
12. Prosperity
World Bank, “Assessing Globalization” Part 1, 2, 3 and 4
Skidelsky, Robert, “Gloomy about globalization” New York Review of Books, 55(6), April 17th 2008
–> Altman, Morris, (2008) “How much economic freedom is necessary for economic growth? Theory and evidence” Economic Bulletin, 15(2):1-20
Other
Game theory
“The bidding game” National Academy of Science
Internal markets
“Bringing the Market Inside” Thomas W. Malone, Harvard Business Review, April 2004
Prediction markets
Wolfers, J. and Zitzewitz, E. (2004) “Prediction markets”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(2):107–126
Malone, Thomas W., “Bringing the Market Inside”, Harvard Business Review, April 2004
Hanson, R., “Insider Trading and Prediction Markets” (.pdf), March 2007
Dye, Renee “The promise of prediction markets: A roundtable” McKinsey Quarterly, April 2008
“An Uncertain Future” The Economist, Feb 26th 2009
“Ford Motor Company Turns to Cloud-Based Prediction Market Software“, HPC in the cloud, Feb 22nd 2011
Corporate entrepreneurship
Polyani, Michael, “The Republic of Science” Minerva, Volume 1, Number 1, 54-73
Ellig, J. and Gable, W. “The Rise of Market-Based Management” The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty July 1995
Parker, D. (1998) “Market Process Management” Strategic Change 7(4):237-245
Moore, Stephen, ”Private Enterprise” Wall Street Journal May 7th 2006
Simons, Robert., “Control in an Age of Empowerment”, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1995
Transition economics
Laar, Mart “The Estonian Economic Miracle” Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder No. 2060, August 7th 2007
Isern, Joseph and Pung, Caroline “Driving Radical Change” McKinsey Quarterly 2007, Issue 4, pp.24-35
Gugenidze, Lado “Georgia’s Search for Economic Liberty: A Blueprint for Reform in Developing Countries”, Development Policy Outlook, American Enterprise Institute, No. 2 June 2009
Scenario building
Wack, Pierre (1985) “Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead.” Harvard Business Review 63, 5: 73-89.
Wilkinson, Laurence (1995) “How to Build Scenarios” Wired Magazine
“The use and abuse of scenarios” McKinsey Quarterly November 2009
Policy simulation
- Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee minutes
- Bank of England Inflation Report
- Economic Conditions Snapshot, McKinsey Global Survey Results
