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Economics Blogging: Teaching the World Through Marginal Revolution

Exploring the impact of GMU economists' blogs like Marginal Revolution on global education, policy debates, and economic wisdom. Embracing a new era where blogging reshapes economic teaching, learning, and policy discourse.

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Economics Blogging: Teaching the World Through Marginal Revolution

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  1. Alex Tabarrok Marginal Revolution Blogging, Teaching, Learning

  2. Why do GMU Economists Blog? • GMU Blogs • Marginal Revolution • Café Hayek • EconLog • Overcoming Bias • Coordination Problem and others • GMU economists also • Newspapers • Radio • Television • Novels • Rap videos.

  3. Economics is Important for the World • Economics teaches important lessons for human welfare. • Popular Physics vs.Popular economics • It’s not vital that the public understand black holes, it is vital that the public understand price controls. • Citizens in a democracy need to understand economics and its lessons. • Principles of economics the most important economics class. • Educating future economists is important but educating future citizens is even more important.

  4. The World is our Classroom • Teaching not restricted to the classroom: the world is our classroom. • Blogs are an important communication tool. • Marginal Revolution amongTop 100 blogs in the world. • Visitors from all over the world. Marginal Revolution, World Visit Map, Oct-Nov, 2011 • We have readers at WSJ, NYTimes, Financial Times, Treasury, Federal Reserve? • Similar story for others, e.g. Krugman andFreakonomics. • The Lesson:Surprising Demand for Economics Knowledge.

  5. Teaching the World Using Blogs • Get to the point. • Bite-sized posts with a little bit of fun. • Dim Sum for the mind. • Don’t assume that limited attention span means limited learning. • Depth comes in following the conversation, repeated visits and links. • Don’t underestimate the audience.

  6. Lessons for Textbook Writing • Be vivid, make every word count. • First sentence from a well-known economics textbook: The word economy comes from the Greek word oikonomos, which means “one who manages a household.” • First sentence, Modern Principles: The prisoners were dying of scurvy, typhoid fever, and smallpox but nothing was killing them more than bad incentives.

  7. Blogging on the Cutting Edge • Prior to ~2008 lots of applied Freakonomics type material. • Then in 2008 the world went to hell. • Blogs have become the first place for policydebate and policy development. • Why?

  8. Blogs: Fast, Open, Robust • Fast • Journal time vs. Real Time. • Open • Anyone can enter the conversation. • Robust • Debate, discussion and development. • Facts are important. • All bugs are shallow with enough eyes.

  9. Crowdsourcing Microbiology

  10. Crowdsourcing Mathematics • Polymath project. Tim Gowers, Fields Medalist, proposed massive collaboration as a way to find a new combinatorial proof to the density version of the Hales–Jewett theorem. • Problem solved within 6-weeks!

  11. Crowdsourcing Economics • Scott Sumner and NGDP targeting. From blog to OMC debate in 3 years. • Gary Gorton and shadow banking. • Housing, finance, monetary, fiscal, structural issues. • Paul Krugman and working out debt transference problem. • Back and forth between policy and model. • Brad DeLong, Nick Rowe and others working to reconcile Fisherian, Wicksellian, Keynesian policy frameworks. • Treasury, Federal Reserve and elsewhere. • Blogs have become especially important for economic policy.

  12. Economic Policy and Cleverness v. Wisdom • Journals reward cleverness. • Prove that the model works, given the assumptions. • Realism of assumptions doesn’t matter (much). • Application to policy in or two paragraphs at the end. • Can be refereed. • Policy requires wisdom. • From the 10 models available which are the most relevant? • Assumptions are critical as is knowing something about the world. Do the assumptions apply? • Economic history of great use. • Constraints of history, psychology, and politics are importance. • Hard to referee.

  13. Policy and Economics • Economics on the blogs is less about formal proofs more about combining economics, politics, psychology, history, and law to make useful advice. • Need a new term: The Return of Political Economy

  14. Conclusions • Blogging is teaching • The world is your classroom. • There is a demand for accessible economics. • Blogging is learning and researching • Changes the questions we ask • Changes acceptable answers • Facts • History • Law • Blogging is the Return of Political Economy.

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