Humor 
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Harry Potter economics
Posted 3/26/10
From BGI student David Rutherford:
Peregrine Bosler posted on Facebook that a friend of hers’ equates studying econ with the dark arts, although comparing it to the cruciatus curse may be a bit much. This got me thinking about what would have happened to a popular fiction series if instead of Hogwarts, J.K. Rowling had sent [...][more]
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My hilarious global warming exchange with Ruffin and Gregory
Posted 11/06/09
In November 2000 (almost ten years ago!) I received a complimentary copy of a new microeconomics textbook by two professors at the University of Houston. The book’s treatment of global warming was so amazing that I picked up some HTML (thanks Barb!!!) and brought their text onto the web, along with an email exchange with [...]
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About my Reed (undergrad) thesis
Posted 11/01/09
As an undergrad math major I wrote a senior thesis called “The Abelian Group Structure on Elliptic Curves Saved My Life!” Sadly, I no longer have an electronic copy of my thesis. (I know, what a blithering idiot. But it was in the mid-1990s, before people kept everything electronically.)
So unless you live in Portland [...][more]
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An open letter to Austan Goolsbee (Oct 8 2009)
Posted 10/07/09
Dear Austan: You might think that it was quite a shock for me–”the world’s first and only stand-up economist“–to find a Wall Street Journal blog with the headline “Austan Goolsbee, stand-up economist“.
But in fact I was not shocked, or even surprised. You and your colleagues in the Obama administration have been quite active in redrawing [...][more]
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The anthropology of peak oil
Posted 9/18/09
Ari Rubenstein has a hilarious (and thought-provoking) take on participants in the Peak Oil debate, with a “spectrum… from total denial…”
Abiotic Oilers: Related to creation scientists, these folks believe that oil is not a “fossil fuel” but is generated deep in the earth by mysterious geological processes. No really. There’s plenty of oil, we just [...]
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Economics sit-com
Posted 9/13/09
In early 2009 a fellow named Sultan organized a contest for a TV show about economists. (Here were the rules, here were the entries, and here was the voting.) My favorite submission, by Hubert Turvy:
William is an economics professor at a small university in Pennsylvania. He specializes in taxation, but has been having trouble getting [...]
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Economic Inquiry: The new home of economics humor!
Posted 9/13/09
As the Specialized Co-Editor for Miscellany of Economic Inquiry (which offers additional innovations such as a no-revisions option), I am delighted to put out this request for submissions that expose the lighter side of the dismal science:
Humorous articles, such as Leijonhufvud’s “Life among the Econ”, (Economic Inquiry, 1973), Gregor W. Smith’s “Japan’s Phillips Curve looks [...]
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My redesigned website… and my 1/2-LTE in The Economist
Posted 8/06/09
Just in time for my Letter to the Editor that was half-published in The Economist (click “more” to see the full LTE), I’ve got a newly redesigned website, courtesy of Outward Focus Design. I hope you like it, and please email me if you find any problems! [more]
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You might be an economist if…
Posted 7/25/09
…you refuse to sell your children because you think they’ll be worth more later.
…you’re an expert on money but you dress like a flood victim (from an old Dilbert, I think)
…someone tells you that economics is like a foreign language to them and you respond by speaking slower and raising your voice.
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