Blogging the Blogroll

I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce a few blogs I read, and give a brief discussion of why I read them. For this post-tax season post, I'll focus on some economics blogs that frequently comment on political matters. Following the conventions of written English, I'll work my way from left to right.

Brad DeLong, UC Berkeley
Definitely the most liberal blogger I read, DeLong is a major supporter of both the fiscal stimulus bill and the health care reform bill. Occasionally he has provided economic arguments in their favor, although more often he provides a mixture of economic and ad hominem arguments against the objections of their opponents. There aren't many matters I agree with him on, and I'm not a big fan of his level of discourse. Why do I read him, then? Because he consistently brings up good points. He is often cited on many other blogs I read precisely because he is asking good questions. Add on the fact that I want to always be ready to learn something from people I disagree with, and it's a worthwhile read.

Paul Krugman, NYT Columnist and Princeton
Still quite liberal (as you might guess from his blogs name, The Conscience of a Liberal), Paul Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics a couple years ago, and for good reason. His major work in international trade involved bringing very simple, clear models to bear on problems everyone up to that point had seen as dizzyingly complex. Although he now spends most of his time arguing for whatever the Democratic party happens to be supporting at the time, there are flashes of that clarity and brilliance that come through from time to time. On top of this, he's possibly the most widely read economics blogger right now, which means it's a good idea to know what he's talking about.

Scott Sumner, Bentley University
I started reading Sumner because for a couple months I heard about his views from every single economics blogger that I was reading. His way of looking at macroeconomic problems differs substantially from those of economists in the policy realm, but only because he is unusually willing to take long-standing economic theory seriously. Over time I have become more and more converted to his way of seeing macroeconomics and monetary policy. He is currently working on a book about the Great Depression, and you can bet I'll be buying a copy when it comes out. He favors more stimulus for the current recession, but from the Fed rather than the Treasury. In general, I wouldn't call him left-wing or right-wing (although he self identifies a bit more with the latter); Sumner is allied with economic theory, and whoever has the best argument from that angle gets his support. As you know, here at Metadoxy we support people who do what they believe in and believe in what they do, so the internal consistency of Sumner's thoughts really appeal to me.

Greg Mankiw, Harvard
On the Republican side (although I'd hardly call him right-wing), Mankiw is author of the most popular economics textbooks in the world right now. He is a frequent commenter on current US legislation, particularly those affecting long term government debt. He has a very readable writing style, and is generally very respectful of all sides in a debate. Like Krugman, he is a trend-setter when it comes to econ topics, and is often viewed as the counterpoint to Krugman. I think of him as closer to a moderate opinion than truly conservative, though.

Craig Newmark, North Carolina State University
Newmark's perspective differs from the academic economists on this list in that he is more of a Business School Economist: he focuses less on theory and more on practical matters, with more of a "well, duh!" attitude towards major government events (he's not a fan of stimulus or the health care bill). He also comments frequently on new products in the market, teaching economics, and other non-economics material he happens to find interesting. It's a nice blog, although he does get a bit snarky with liberals and hippies.

EconLog (Arnold Kling / Bryan Caplan / David Henderson), Various Affiliations
Probably the most right-wing blog I read (There was another even more so for a while, but I got bored and unsubscribed), this blog leans heavily Libertarian. The authors tend toward free market pacifism, and often don't subscribe to conventional economic interpretations of things. I probably disagree with Kling (the closest thing the blog has to a "front man") more often than I agree, but he always makes me think through why, and for that alone he's probably got me as a reader for life. Caplan regularly introduces interesting a lot of cultural and broadly social scientific topics that probably deserve the label of sociology or social psychology. Henderson is more of an advocate of the Austrian school of economics, which is outside the mainstream of the profession but still frequently provides fascinating and unexpected insights.

Those are the main blogs that focus almost exclusively on economic matters. Well, there's also James Hamilton and Menzie Chinn over at Econbrowser, both of whom are quite excellent commentators. The problem is that the blog is unintelligible without a year of graduate level economics or finance as background, so I shouldn't recommend it to the uninitiated.

Next time I think I'll mention some of the blogs that move more frequently between economics and social commentary, and then perhaps move on to some of my other areas of expertise.