This page contains a categorized list of the best economics blogs, with a description of and link to each one.
Economics Blogs
Angry Bear
was named among the top twenty independent financial blogs on the net by 24/7 Wall St. in 2010. The blog includes half a dozen professionals, including a tax law expert, a historian, PhDs in economics, business consultants and financial professionals provide perspectives on the financial world. Despite their expansive coverage of economic issues, their articles are as deep as their coverage is extensive. Topics include world trade, industrial production, U.S. Government programs, and major regulatory issues.Argmax
contains economics news, data, and analysis. It's written by John Irons, currently a Senior Economic Research and Policy Analyst and Staff Economist at OMB Watch, a Washington DC nonprofit organization, where he tracks federal tax and budget issues. Previously he was an economics professor at Amherst College.The Becker-Posner Blog
is a class act. The authors are Gary Becker, University Professor in the Department of Economics and Sociology and Professor in the Graduate School of Business in the University of Chicago, and Judge Richard Posner, Senior Lecturer in Law at The University of Chicago Law School. Professor Becker, born in 1930, has an 8 page CV (PDF) which covers an illustrious academic career. Judge Posner has an equally rich resume (Word doc), culminating in his role as Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The blog consists of elegantly-written and carefully argued short essays by the two authors, with one often responding to the other. Subjects tend to be highly topical, such as terrorism, spam, estate taxes, China's economy, Medicare and Social Security. The blog has been operating since December 2004 with roughly one interchange plus comments per week.The Anti-Becker-Posner Blog
is a response to The Becker-Posner Blog and a study in contrasts, down to the style and color scheme. The anonymous administrator wants it to be "a community blog... Anyone who catches any mistake or omission in any post by Becker or Posner is invited to comment..." So far there is only one author - the administrator, whose own comments are short and pithy responses to the Becker-Posner posts. Anonymity is justified on the following grounds: "You should judge my arguments by their content, not by my identity... I'm not claiming any special knowledge, and I see no need for you to have them [sic] to judge the claims and conclusions on this blog. My biases should be fairly clear from the title and content." That's a suspect argument since anonymity, particularly in blogs and message boards, often encourages a lack of courtesy that would never be expressed if the author was face to face with the people he was criticising. The tag line for the blog, for example, is "A Blog devoted to correcting the mistakes, omissions, and downright nonsense on the Becker-Posner-Blog." Charming. A better principle is: If you're not comfortable being associated with what you write, you probably shouldn't be writing it. Launched in May 2005 with timing of posts determined by the Becker-Posner Blog. Prof Becker and Judge Posner, by the way, had the class to link to The Anti-Becker-Posner Blog themselves.Brad DeLong
is Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkely. He writes frequently (twice daily?) on topics including the business cycle, labor economics, monetary and fiscal policy, health care, the Internet, employment and unemployment and development economics. His posts are often lengthy and detailed.The Capital Spectator,
written by James Picerno, describes its focus as "Money, oil, economics and the search for the bottom line". Postings are freqent (often daily), detailed and well written, and the blog has an outstanding set of categorized links.The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid
is written by Donald Luskin, Chief Investment Officer of Trend Macrolytics, an independent economics and strategy firm serving institutional investors, and former Vice Chairman of Barclays Global Investors. The blog is highly political; Donald describes it as follows: "When media, politics, academia and business collide on the battlefield of economic thought, the result is a conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid... The blog is dedicated to exposing the conspiracy."Dear Economist
is the agony aunt of economics blogs. Tim Harford writes a column in the Financial Times "answering readers' personal problems with the tools of Adam Smith"; this is the online repository of that column. And here's the draw: Mr Hartford's column is thought-provoking, intelligent, and very funny. An example:
Question: From time to time, I go out with friends to a restaurant. Frequently, someone suggests: "Why don't we order a number of different dishes and share them?" I do not like this idea... How can I break this cycle, while retaining my friends?
Answer: ...Fortunately the Coase theorem, developed by the revered economist Ronald Coase, predicts a happy outcome if property rights are clearly specified. Rather than refuse outright, you should insist that each person holds ownership rights over the dish they order. Mutually agreed trades are of course permissible. This should ensure that splitting dishes occurs only when socially efficient...
The one drawback of the blog is that most of the answers are truncated, with a link to the full column in the FT Online ...which requires a paid subscription. Yup, this is the hybrid free/paid content model at work. Launched in September 2003 with one post per week (that week's column).The Eclectic Econoclast
is John Palmer, Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He's taught there for 34 years, published prolifically, and received citations and a couple of teaching awards. His posts deal primarily with economic analysis of current events with a "definitely pro-market, anti-interventionist" slant. But Prof. Palmer is also an actor, musician and artist, and about a third of his posts are what he describes as "diverse, with a humourous or challenging edge to them". The tag-line of The Eclectic Econoclast is an indicator of what you'll get here: Economics and the mid-life crisis have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities. Started in November 2004, 2-5 posts every day, though "I tell my wife that I try to limit my postings to three per day".EconLog
is written by Arnold Kling. He received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1980, was an economist on the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1980-1986, and a senior economist at Freddie Mac from 1986-1994. In 1994, he started Homefair.com, which was sold in 1999 to Homestore.com. Kling is the author of Under the Radar: Starting Your Internet Business without Venture Capital.Financial Rounds
is hard to classify since it ranges over a wide swath of finance and economics topics. It's included in the Economics section here since many of the posts focus on economics, and the blogroll features numberous other economics blogs. The author, who refers to himself as The Unknown Professor is a finance professor with a PhD in finance at an East-Coast state university who has taught courses about personal finance, corporate finance, and financial markets, and previously worked as a financial planner. The blog was started in February 2005; posts are usually daily. Blogs are great tools for exchanging ideas and enhancing academic reputations, so hopefully the author will join the large number of academic economists who write under their real names.General Glut's Globblog
(an abbreviation of Globalization Weblog)is described by its author as "an economic blog written from the actualleft, not the center-left or center and not (primarily) about politics;definitely not "liberal" in any way". It's written by a professor ofPolitical Science at a liberals arts college in the Northeastern US,and analyzes current economic news, emphasizing deflation andoverproduction. Its theoretical bent is broadly Marxist or leftKeynesian.Institutional Economics
is written by Steven Kirchner, a graduate student at Australia'sUniversity of New South Wales. It provides an Australian perspective onthe U.S. and global economy.Knowledge Problem
is written by Lynne Kiesling, director of economic policy for the libertarian Reason Foundation in Chicago. It contains daily commentary on oil prices, hydrogen power and the state of the electrical grid.Marginal Revolution
is co-written by Professors Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. Tyler Cowen is professor of economics at George Mason University and at the Center for the Study of Public Choice, and Director of the James Buchanan Center and the Mercatus Center in Fairfax, Virginia. Alex Tabarrok is associate professor of economics at George Mason University, research director for The Independent Institute and a research fellow with the Mercatus Center. Marginal Revolution is lively, stimulating and well-written. It covers current events, economic policy, links to other economics blogs and quick thoughts on practically anything ("A woman's genetic make-up accounts for at least a third of her ability to climax during sex, say researchers"). Posts, which often quote views of other economics bloggers, are short, readable and light on academic jargon. And there's humor: in a discussion of how to reform economics graduate education, Tyler Cowen concludes that "My recipe for George Mason, my own school, is different. Most of the graduate students simply need to work harder." Launched in March 2005, multiple posts per day, good categorization of articles.Market Musings
is written by Joseph Y. Calhoun of Alhambra Investments, bucks the consensus view of the economy and markets. It takes an Austrian or Neo-Classical view of economics and view markets through a value lens. The blog concentrates on both macroeconomic issues and individual securities or trading. You will also find political commentary, financial market analysis, and daily economic reports, complete with charts, analysis and original reports.New Economist
describes itself as "musings from a London-based economist and policy wonk". It's written by a London-based economist who has “worked over the years for several governments, an investment bank and a think tank. Issues covered include the UK and US economies, financial markets, monetary policy, labour markets, books and social policy. The blog is particularly strong on coverage of recent conferences, new discussion papers and other economic publications. Labour economics is another major focus. The author tries to eschew personal vitriol in favour of enlightened debate (well, most of the time at least). Launched in February 2005, with four or five posts per week.Newmark's Door
is written by Craig Newmark, Associate Professor of Economics at North Carolina State University. The blog's tagline is "Things one middle-aged economist finds interesting". In practice, says Prof Newmark, that means "posts on cars, music, film, sports, food, health, and computers, among other topics". "That said," he continues, "most of the posts deal with current events, with a particular interest in economics. Also, since I'm a university teacher married to a high school teacher, and we have two kids, I'm quite interested in education and there are a fair number of posts about that. My slant is politically and economically conservative." Newmark's Door is distinguished by a pithy, conversational style, short posts, sharp insights and lots of interesting links. Another academic economics blogger recommended it for inclusion in the Economics Blog Resource Page on the basis that it's "short and lively". He's right. Launched in April 2002, with posts daily.Nouriel Roubini's Global Economics Blog's
author is Associate Professor of Economics and International Businessat the Stern School of Business of New York University (NYU). Roubini covers practical issues in global finance with relevance to traders and investors, such as China's exchange rate, developing country debt restructuring, and the valuation and attractiveness of bonds. What differentiates this from blogs written by investment professionals is its academic rigour and the length of the articles. Post frequency is somewhat erratic; sometimes daily, sometimes one post per week. The posts could be categorized (the blog uses Movable Type) but aren't, and that makes it harder to find Roubini's thoughts by topic.Reasonable Bystanders
is written by Shawn Forbes, Chris Paul, and John Hatem, three finance professors at the Department of Finance and Quantitative Analysis at Georgia Southern University. Not surprising given the authors' field, Reasonable Bystanders is more finance focused than many other economics blogs. Posts often react to articles in the Wall Street Journal and other mainstream media publications, pointing out mistakes or common falacies. Many readers will like that -- it makes the blog topical and relevant. Others may find it too reactive and wish that the professors set more of their own agenda. Launched in September 2005, about one post per week.Samuel Brittan
is an economics columnist for the Financial Times. His blog contains current articles and an extensive archive, and is must-read material on the UK economy.Signature Update
is a weekly Economic and Market Commentary distributed to subscribers and others seeking to better understand the trends effecting our market and economy. It provides timely economic and market insights into an all-too-complex world of finance, economic and political policy, and personal decision making. Its content is designed to aide you in making sense of the world around you and strengthen your position in the workplace, home or academia.A Taxing Blog
focuses on tax policy. It's written by Victor Fleischer and Jeffrey Kahn. Fleischer is Research Fellow in Transactional Studies and Lecturer-in-Law, and the Director of the Transactional Studies Programat Columbia Law School.Truck and Barter
is written by a team of four economists. Kevin Brancato is a PhDStudent in Economics at George Mason University, and was formerly ananalyst at the RAND Corporation and the Federal Reserve Bank of NewYork. Ian P. Cook earned an MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, and now works at a research/consulting firm in Washington DC. Bob Arne was a trader in Chicago, and is now working towards his economics Ph.d. at Claremont Graduate University. And the final writer is anonymous, and is described by the others as "our correspondent in the non-democratic Muslim state of Maldives; he writes on Maldivan economics and politics. Here's how they describe what they do: "We all cover economics from a heterodox, free-market perspective. Ian covers voting and politics; Paul writes on the Maldives; Bob has wider macro interests; Others contribute when interested."Winter Speak
is written by Zimran Ahmed, who spent three years working as a technology consultant and is a graduate student at the University ofChicago Business School studying how government regulation affects telecommunications and networking companies.
