A new economics is possible
George Soros announces the endowment of an Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), to be housed at the Central European University, Budapest. Joseph Stiglitz and George Akerlof are excited.
Category Archives: economics
Germany and online journalism
NYTimes, Germany Looks at Ways to Protect Online Journalism: As Angela Merkel begins her second term as chancellor of Germany, her government is promoting a novel way to help embattled newspaper and magazine publishers manage the transition to a digital future. The new governing coalition, led by Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats and including the Free… Read More »
William Easterly on development economics
It is ‘the study of how to get rich without knowing how’. What must we do to end world poverty? At last, an answer: OK, that’s too good to be true. There has been a search for sixty years for the right answer. Now most economists confess ignorance how to raise the rate of economic growth… Read More »
Advert Africa
Really good initiative reported by Next: The Lagos State council of tradesmen and artisans have embraced the use of the Internet as a means of attracting a wider audience and bringing their services closer to the public. At a formal introduction to the council members by Advert Africa, an Internet advert service provider, yesterday in… Read More »
On Chasing Alpha
Stephen Gudeman’s post on the Association of Social Anthropologists’ Globalog series on the financial crisis: Economists may see economies as flat or smooth plains consisting of markets and market-like behavior that lead to equilibrium situations, but I think they consist of overlapping and conflicting spheres of value and practices. I label these fuzzy-edged spaces House,… Read More »
Nigeria’s stimulus package
is from oil cash reserve. From the BBC: Nigeria’s top economic body, the National Economic Council, has approved a government decision to spend $2bn (£1.25bn) from its oil windfall fund. The fund was set up as a way to protect Nigeria’s economy from unpredictable movements in the oil price. The Nigerian government says it will… Read More »
Anthropologists discuss the financial crisis
on the American Anthropological Association (AAA) website. From the AAA blog: The economic crisis issue includes: Gillian Tett: Icebergs and Ideologies: How Information Flows Fuelled the Financial Crisis Aaron Pitluck: Ethnography Meets Econometrics: Exploring Daily Work Practices that Lead to Financial Crises Tara Schwegler: The Global Crisis of Economic Meaning Edward F Fischer: Capitalism in… Read More »
An Ethnography of Wall Street
Financial Times’ Gillian Tett reviews Karen Ho’s Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street: Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street By Karen Ho Duke Press £16.99, 392 pages When I first started covering finance for the FT, I used to get embarrassed when asked about my academic past. Before I became a journalist, I did a… Read More »
The (unintended) effect of the bank takeover in Nigeria
Remember this story about the Nigerian central bank taking over five Nigerian banks? Well, it seems that a result of that has been a sort of credit crunch in the country. From the BBC: Lagos-based manufacturing firm, supplying cables to Nigeria’s fledgling national grid. With more than 500 skilled staff, it is exactly the kind… Read More »
China seeks big stake in Nigerian oil
From Financial Times.