The focus is on 401K investors needs to avoid expensive blunders into
which CNBC and similar organization guide 401K "donors" crowd (we are not
investors in any reasonable meaning of this word as we are fleeced and on
average cannot get returns above inflation). The author thinks that
comments to leading blogs are as important to read as the blog posts themselves.
The web discussions in key blogs are truly a wonderful resource. And exploring
this resource is the focus of the page.
This is more a "retrospective" and no attempt is made to stay current
and there is at least 24 hours delay between post in the original blog post
and its reference on this page. The main blogs that have high quality
discussion of posts and that are covered in this derivative chronicle are:
in this particular order. The special attention is paid to comments
and bringing the best comments to the light they deserve, as comment section
are often as informative or more informative than original posts. The list
of blogs that I read is at the Recommended Blogs
section.
Economic science is not an exact science, it is 'dismal science".
So absence of economic education in itself might represent advantage that
then handicap, only the absence of the desire to learn. There is nothing
complex in neo-classical economics for a skilled programmer, other that
the number of naive assumptions about complex systems. Moreover as
large part of neo-classical economics taught at the universities looks somewhat
like Lysenkoism and as such is not very attractive for anyone with in-depth
understanding programming, Excel and mathematical statistics.
For example some Krugman's efforts to use mathematics (and his pretenses
for "mathematically literate" economist status) are not very convincing.
The first sign of real mathematician is to make sure that mathematical theory
used (for example, linearity assumptions for many models) are justified.
The second test is making sure the complexity of the mathematic apparatus
used matches the precision of the data (and if the data are very unreliable
the model should be extremely simple like it is the case for data about
inflation or unemployment) .
Krugman fails both tests.
No self-respecting industry these days is without a must-read blog.
And economics is not an exception. Although they vary wildly on fine points like
depth of analysis and accuracy of predictions, they are now part of information
universe and should be treated as such. As economics is broken between "insiders"
and "outsiders", the former are also a window into the inner workings, preoccupations
and gossip of huge (and currently shrinking) financial industry. Her is one
funny take on the subject
Paul Krugman - a very clever fellow who should never be allowed to use
the word "wonk." (If it is a word)
Brad DeLong - Another clever fellow - unfortunately also a reincarnation
of Savronala. Could stand to be more temperate/mealy mouthed.
Eugene Fama - Who?
Tyler Cowen - A very clever fellow who would be more successful if he
were less concerned with being the coolest kid in the school.
John Cochrane - Eugene Fama's son-in-law. The Fama family's most useful
output: Children's stories.
Greg Mankiw I - Prolific writer of unintelligible but prestigious textbooks.
Good blogger.
Greg Mankiw II - Bottom dwelling Bush admin econo-liar. Not known to
be related to his namesake.
Steven Landsberg - Math/relativity dropout. Also, frequently annoying
twit.
Steven Levitt - Economist with a genius for self-promotion.
Milton Friedmann, John M Keynes, Adam Smith. Members of two famous economics
clubs: G = good economists, D = dead economists. An important but unproven
conjecture holds that G is a subset of D.
Lawrence Summers - Former Harvard President and Treasury Sec. Famed
for his groundbreaking study: "The Economics of Tact."
Wonk - The sound a goose makes as it is sucked into the engine of an
Airbus A-380 personal luxury jet with onboard parking for your Rolls.
The XXI century can be called "century of disinformation"
as all major outlets being essentially voices of powerful financial groups.
As Stefan Stern aptly noted that there is "No hiding in misinformation age" (September
22 2008 )
“The information age” is a misleading label. It implies that most if not all
of the words and data you get to consume in various media are essentially true.
But this cannot be right, as some of the excessive market free-for-all of recent
weeks has shown.
So if you read WSJ, NYT or FT.com the smell of corruption and attempt
to whitewatch facts in the interests of power elite is almost physical. And the
most important countervailing force now are paradoxically financial blogs.
Here are some of the most influential blogs across industries ranging
from publishing and finance to health care and Hollywood, put together by The Wall
Street Journal's beat reporters in these areas.
Top
Naked
capitalism An excellent analysis of the current economic situation.
Too many blogs are derivative but Yves Smith's is not. Often contains insightful
analysis of events, the analysis that you will never find in mainstream
press. Naked Capitalism and Calculated Risk are one of the few who
accurately foretold in some detail the subprime mess.
.
The Big Picture Barry Ritholtz
covers different spectrum of financial news then Yves Smith . His posts
are very insightful and timely but in a different way then posts in Naked
Capitalist. He has a very useful skeptical view on establishment.
Economist's View
One of the few rational economists in blogosphere. Very good
comments which enhance the value of the posts considerably.
Calculated Risk
-- this blog concentrates on real estate problems and benefits from the
fact that author in no longer in business and can freely express his (based
on substantial experience) views. Here is one of the Comments from
the economics blogs discussion at Brad Delong site:
Another vote for Calculated Risk, even though it isn't really
an economics blog - call it applied economics with a narrow range
of applications.
Damn good at what it does.
... the blog is also an amazing underdog (underpig?) story--
that an anonymous woman whose credentials aren't some degree or
professorship, but just mastery of craft could be cited by so many
as one of the top ten is an achievement on her part, but no small
indictment of the economics establishment.
Yes, she has a great partner, but we all read her for her snarkiness,
the same way we watch car races for the crashes.
Paul Krugman - The New York Times Krugman is a talented and
courageous political commentator. Along with Thomas
Frank,
Kevin Phillips he has been a leading figure in rejecting the
idea that the Republican party represents a serious viewpoint
that should be accorded respect, even in disagreement. Paul Krugman is a hero for many of us
because he is willing to speak truth to power even when there is enormous
pressure to keep quiet under Bush regime. Many of his political columns survived the test
of the time including his critical approach to Bush administration. On Nov.
19, 2000, when the Bush-Gore election was still in doubt, Krugman wrote:
"Suppose that George W. Bush pulls it off -- that he gets to the White House
on the strength of chads and butterflies. Will he make good on his boast
of being a 'uniter, not a divider'? His behavior since election night is
a bad omen; it suggests that what Mr. Bush means is that everyone should
unite to give him what he wants."
But at the same time he is neo-classical economist and at times pretty
aggressive one. His critique of John Kenneth Galbright were blatantly wrong
and actually temporary positioned him at the far right of
economic spectrum. . As an economist he is guilty of
uncritically (and naively)
using mathematical models without understanding the limits of
their applicability. The idea that mathematical model should be
simpler if variables are not known with sufficient precision is
pretty foreign to him. But without taking into account the
precision of variables economic models a little more that
masturbation with mathematical symbols. Like other neo-classical economists he is partially
responsible for the current crises although not to the extent Milton Friedman
and other Chicago school economists and his colleague for
Princeton Ben Bernanke are...
Brad Delong
Blog-- Brad Delong is a "Respectable Professor Of
Dismal
Science" and a very controversial blogger. He scored a few excellent posts
but most material is grayish and the main value are in comments of the readers.
Some time his posts are even worse then grey:
He has absurdly naive and childish for a Berkeley professor views
on foreign policy: the kind of person who has no idea how ignorant he
is and how easily he can be deceived and manipulated by propaganda.
He also is definitely suffering from the excessive love for Greenspan
and Maestro's monetary policy. Call it an academic's fantasy or just
gratefulness for some help in getting his position but still it's really
bad. It's clear even to a non-specialist that Greenspan looked
credit bubble (based on housing bubble) in the face, blinked and
hoped that he'll retire before sh*t hit the fan. According to
Willem Buiter Greenspan's
era interest rate policy was far from the sign of any intelligence and
can be performed by "a bunch of moderately intelligent graduate
students in economics".
So please beware that in certain areas Professor Delong made very
little progress in grasping reality...
His blog attract very gifted commentators and comments are often of very
high quality. He also have a very good political blog.
FT Alphaville
is an excellent resourcelinking to extremely good links to
FT.com articles. I am a subscriber, but often I miss important articles
in paper edition of FT that are covered in FT Alphaville
Please avoid Aslund as he is just an establishment
shill. IMHO no real talent either as a forecaster or economic commentator.
Truth be told as an economic commentator he is not yet at the level
of Larry Kudloff but he is moving in the same direction :-)
Butler and Wolf views on USA economics looks worth
reading. Their views on world economic are interesting too although
much more questionable. Like most of British press both have a maniacal
distrust for Russia competing in this respect with some rednecks, so
sometimes articles or entries look really funny (or idiotic, depending
on your point of view). See for example
Willem Buiter’s Maverecon Don’t worry, we can always lease Heathrow
to the Russians… where Butler, generally a serious
economist, behaves like a complete idiot (in a sense of IQ below 40).
Another ridiculous personality in this area is Martin Wolf (who often
writes a very good analysis of the USA economic events and as such is
highly recommended) who sometime managed to demonstrate in Russia-related
articles IQ below 20 as in the following:
Martin
Wolf - Why Putin’s rule threatens both Russia and the west ;-).
That's a real achievement...
Mish's Global Economic
Trend Analysis Libertarian bias, highly anti-union
stance, absurd believe if free market (as opposed to fair
market), as well as other libertarian hallucination. Still some
posts contains
high quality materials for peoples subscribing to any economical
or political doctrine. Mish views on inflation should be taken with
a grain of salt.
Wonderful collection of sites from Jimmy Atkinson at Fund
Reference:
~~~
Thankfully there are a number of sites dedicated to conveying investment
advice that is actually worthwhile. The exceptional sites listed below can
serve as resources for those looking to invest wisely and gradually accumulate
wealth.
Big Picture: Barry Ritholtz remains one of the most insightful and
honest financial commentators out there (as well as a tremendous source of
morning reading).
Bogleheads Forum: This free community of Bogleheads contains
a massive amount of information on every topic imaginable, and is a great
place to start for anyone looking to develop a greater understanding of
investing.
Coffeehouse Investor: This site is run by fee-only advisor Bill
Schultheis, who is guided
by the ideathat investors are best off when they do a little bit of
planning and a lot of enjoying and experiencing life.
Crossing Wall Street: Named the "best buy-and-hold blogger" by CNN
Money, Eddy Elfenbein is a great source for both daily reading and long-term
investing insight.
Dividend Mantra: Jason Fieber, a passionate investor and "frugalist,"
writes about his journey to financial independence through consistent
savings and smart investing. In addition to updates on his portfolio, Jason
shares detailed information about his monthly
budgets and savings rate.
Investor's Field Guide: Patrick O'Shaughnessy is a portfolio manager who
has written extensively about investor behavior and authored a
book on investing strategies for today's younger generations.
Jason
Zweig: The longtime personal finance columnist (currently at The Wall
Street Journal) is one of the more thoughtful writers working for a major
media outlet. Jason's personal site is home to anoutstanding
collection of his best pieces.
Larry Swedroe: The director of research for the BAM Alliance is one of
the most intelligent voices in the financial industry, who distills complex
studies and research projects into actionable advice for all types of
investors.
Oblivious Investor: Mike Piper is a CPA and author of several books,
with a gift for illustrating just how simple investing should be. His Investing
101 summary is a great starting point for those with little experience.
Reformed Broker: Josh Brown is the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management,
on-air contributor to CNBC's "The Halftime Report," and author of a couple
of books. His reputation for providing honest
insights about the wealth management industry has made him one of the
most widely followed voices in the business.
Rick
Ferri: Rick is the founder of Portfolio Solutions and author of several
books. He is one of themost
vocal proponents of low-cost indexing and general common sense
investing.
Wealth of Common Sense: Ben Carlson is an institutional money manager
who excels at breaking down complex investing topics into concise,
easy-to-understand discussions.
And the conclusions of economists who don't have their own blogs are collected
by other bloggers and on YouTube videos. For example,
this blog rounds up everything
Marc Faber says.
And you've got blogs like Zero Hedge
that break stories about Goldman and high-frequency trading months before the
mainstream media. And insightful commentators like
Barry Ritholtz and
Mish and many others.
So what is "news"? What the talking heads choose to cover? Or what various
leading experts are saying - and oftentimes heatedly debating one against the
other - on their blogs?
I would argue that mainstream newspapers haven't just lost readers because
of the Internet as an abstract new medium, but that they lost readers because
they became - with some exceptions - nothing but official stenographers for
the powers-that-be. No wonder people have
lost all faith in them.
Indeed, as of February, only
5% of the pundits discussing various government bailout plans on cable news
shows are real economists. Why not hear what
real economists and financial experts
say?
To the extent that blogs offer actual news and the mainstream media does
not, the latter will continue to lose eyeballs and ad revenues to the former.
Of course, many financial blogs are not very good. The trick is
to learn which are trustworthy and accurate.
And this is not to imply that all mainstream commentators are short on
facts. Some are really good. Once again, the trick is find the good ones.
In
"A Few Favorites," I highlighted a list
of websites that I put together for a Blogs.com
feature,
"Coming to Grips with the Great Unraveling -
10 Great Financial Blogs." But the truth
is that there is no way anyone, including me,
can keep tabs on the extraordinary mess we are
in with such a small group. Here's 15 additional
sites that I would find it very hard to do without:
Six Apart, the creators of
Typepad (the hosting service that I use
for all my blogs), publishes a website called
Blogs.com,
aimed at helping visitors discover the best
in the genre.
To be sure, there are plenty of others --
my RSS reader, for example, has more than 350
blog feeds alone -- so one shouldn't assume
I could get by with just the sites listed above.
Nonetheless, they represent an excellent starting
point (along with
Financial Armageddon and
When
Giants Fall, of course) for keeping tabs
on a dangerously uncertain and fast-changing
world.
Paul Krugman - a very clever fellow who should never be allowed to use the
word "wonk." (If it is a word)
Brad DeLong - Another clever fellow - unfortunately also a reincarnation
of Savronala. Could stand to be more temperate/mealy mouthed.
Eugene Fama - Who?
Tyler Cowen - A very clever fellow who would be more successful if he were
less concerned with being the coolest kid in the school.
John Cochrane - Eugene Fama's son-in-law. The Fama family's most useful
output: Children's stories.
Greg Mankiw I - Prolific writer of unintelligible but prestigious textbooks.
Good blogger.
Greg Mankiw II - Bottom dwelling Bush admin econo-liar. Not known to be
related to his namesake.
Steven Landsberg - Math/relativity dropout. Also, frequently annoying twit.
Steven Levitt - Economist with a genius for self-promotion.
Milton Friedman, John M Keynes, Adam Smith. Members of two famous economics
clubs: G = good economists, D = dead economists. An important but unproven conjecture
holds that G is a subset of D.
Lawrence Summers - Former Harvard President and Treasury Sec. Famed for
his groundbreaking study: "The Economics of Tact."
Wonk - The sound a goose makes as it is sucked into the engine of an Airbus
A-380 personal luxury jet with onboard parking for your Rolls.
Anthropogenic climate change denialists
Market Magic libertarians
Creationists and like-minded anti-Darwinians
Holocaust deniers
Birthers (Obama is not a US citizen)
Black helicopter conspiracy theorists*
Most of these people are not in mental institutions. Instead, they are
in the Republican Party or other Libertarian fringe groups. What exactly
is it that attracts the nut jobs to right wing politics? A lot of these
people are just the left behind, the people who couldn't or wouldn't understand
history, science, or logic. Others are just incapable of stretching their
world view to accomodate reality. Still others are clinical. A common thread
is a sense of grievance, but Dems have people like that too. There are left
wing nutjobs, to be sure, but they don't run the Democratic party, or even
have a real voice in it.
The people who control the Republican Party and it's machinery (Grover
Norquist, Fox News, most other news) are usually not that dumb, of course.
Instead they seem to be cynical opportunists seeking to take advantage of
the credulity of masses by spreading what they know to be lies. Here I have
in mind the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington
Post as well as the Hannitys and Rushes. They really only have one platform:
low taxes for the ultra-rich.
*In order of increasing separation from reality.
>
[Nov 16, 2008] This over-excitable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
While being a Briton there is something deeply southern in his penchant
to wild exaggerations... Few US-related material might be OK (he served
as Washington correspondent for some time) but got forbid read anything
he write about Europe, especially Eastern Europe or, worse, Russia ;-). All-in-all
writings of this columnist need to be taken with a large dose of slat...
From the
economy of sports to the impact of traffic on the
economy, these blogs offer a wide range of information
from some of the best professors in the field.
Financial Literacy and Ignorance.
Annamaria Lusardi at Dartmouth writes about
personal finance and how much (or how little)
most people know about it.
Pat Utomi's Musings. Running
for President of the African Democratic Congress,
this professor at Lagos Business School-Pan
African University writes about economics as
well as discusses his platform.
ProfessorVC. This professor
of entrepreneurial finance blogs about business
and other interests.
Carpe Diem. Mark J. Perry
writes about gas prices, real estate bubbles,
and more on this popular blog.
Division of Labour. This
collaborative blog is written by several professors
and focuses on economics.
The Transportationist.
David Levinson and the Nexus Research Group
on Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems write
about topics such as traffic congestion, economic
impact of traffic improvements, and bridge safety.
Organizations and Markets.
Four professors from America and Europe collaborate
on this blog which touches on various aspects
of economics.
Conservation Finance. The
title says it all for this blog written by Lars
Christian Smith.
CoreEconomics. Written
by Melbourne Business School's Joshua Gans,
this blog looks at economics and a few other
topics as well.
The Wages of Wins Journal.
These three professors of economics look at
the economics of sports in this blog, which
is a companion piece to their book The Wages
of Wins.
The Borjas Blog. Professor
George Borjas specializes in labor economics
and blogs about immigration and labor around
the world.
Economist's View. Mark
Thoma writes such topics as economic growth,
financial markets, speculation and bubbles,
and more on his economy blog.
But that's not gonna stop me from posting
it. From
Brad DeLong:
Here's what NetNewsWire throws up as tops
in attention in the "economics" category:
* Mark Thoma's Economist's View http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/ * Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen's Marginal
Revolution http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/ * Justin Fox's Curious Capitalist http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/ * Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ * James Hamilton's and Menzie Chinn's Econbrowser
http://www.econbrowser.com/ * Angry Bear http://angrybear.blogspot.com/ * WSJ Real Time Economics http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/ * Paul Krugman http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ * Felix Salmon's Market Movers http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/ * Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed http://paul.kedrosky.com/
Comments
Obvious answer: your top ten doesn't include
you yourself, so one of the others will
have to go.
I know,I know. Brad DeLongs Weblog is missing.
Its disheartening, the amount of ignorance
in the world. Suffice to say, knowledgeable
people know the best economic weblogs. We
don't need no stinkin list makers.
Dani Rodrik's blog on development economics
really needs to be on here (http://rodrik.typepad.com/).
He's one of the best development economists
around and his blog is always well written,
fair and interesting.
He really needs
to be on any list of the top 10 economics
related blogs.
Mankiw doesn't write enough to rate I think.
I agree on Arnold Kling.
You need one right winger at least, if
no other reason than the debate, if you
don't like Luskin what about Cafe Hayek?
Also, I think Rodrick is good if you
are economist, he is too hard to understand
if not. So that one depends on what you
are rating for, the general public or economists.
On that score, maybe Jane Galt, er Megan
McArdle? She gets a lot of eyeballs and
has a way of sparking debate with the way
she writes. But she is not even an economist,
so maybe not on that basis.
I use Thoma, Kedrosky, Hamilton, Krugman.
I also subscribe to DeLong, Naked Capitalism,
Cassandra Does Tokyo, Brad Setser, William
Polley; and Calculated Risk until they dropped
the full RSS feeds...
I try and get minimal overlap but minimal
gaps as well...
I follow Nouriel Roubini when he's free...not
a monitor subscriber. Along with others
mentioned here, including this site and
Calculated Risk. Brad Setser's good, too.
He is amongst the biggest of all the
right wing hacks, only he is somewhat more
eloquent than the obvious morons like Luskin.
That eloquence allows him to get away with
saying really stupid stuff.
EXAMPLE: His tirade about "Predatory
Borrowing" was a huge embarrassment, for
him as well as the NYT. It revealed him
to be a clueless idealogue, guilty of the
most egregious rightwingnuttery. He is unworthy
of any thinking person's further time.
Impossible to list ten I think. I like Barry
Ritholtz but I don't think he's top ten
so I'd knock him out and replace him with
yourself. But then what to do with Calculated
Risk, Brad Setser, Naked Capitalism, Wlliam
Poley, Dani Rodrik? That's a Top Fifteen.
Glad to see someone besides me finds Tyler
Cowen intolerable though.
If we think of economics narrowly defined,
I would downrate several blog that I consider
essential reading (including this one and
Krugman's) simply because so much of their
excellent comment is outside of economics.
(Just think of anything involving keywords
"John Yoo", "Impeach" or "Why can't we have
a better")
I would also severely
downweight any blog that does not host comments
(such as Mankiw's).
If we define economics narrowly, my vote
for top is Chinn and Hamilton.
My portal to economic news is Dean Baker's
Beat the Press (http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press)
from which I link to j-bradford etc. I also
have it (j-bradford etc) in my favorites
list.
I also read:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
Calculated Risk
and Brad Setser
What I like about all these blogs is
that they are empirically based, literate
and analytical. If these folks refer to
Marx, odds are they have actually read something
Marx wrote, decided for themselves what
he said that was of value and discarded
the rest.
Free Exchange must be there if any MSM-hosted
site makes the cut. Becker-Posner, even
though they don't post often. Mankiw, Rodrik
as others have mentioned.
I like WSJ Environmental Capitalism,
though they may be too specialized for this.
No for Ritholtz and Kedrosky -- fine for
trading and markets and business but no
actual understanding of economics. Justin
Fox is on the edge. Yes to Brad Setser,
Maverecon, and Rodrik.
That NetNewsWire list strikes me as deeply
suspect, and not just because I'm on there
and you're not. But shouldn't you just give
Six Apart your own totally subjective top
10 list and ignore the Web 2.0 noise of
"attention" ratings and commenters' opinions?
[But this is what NetNewsWire reports *I*
pay attention to. It's my *personalized*
attention ranking...]
Free Exchange is often written more like
an Econ 101 lecture than most other econ
blogs - that is why I like it so much.
I really like Megan McArdle's Asymmetrical
Information, but I would say that at most
50% of what she writes is actually about
economics, the rest being culture/politics/random
crap.
I also read Marginal Revolution and,
of course, Grasping Reality with Both Hands.
Scratch my previous comment. I misunderstood
the NetNewsWire attention ranking. I've
read up on it since, and if I understand
correctly it ranks the blogs that YOU pay
the most attention to. So of course you're
not on the list. And it strikes me as an
entirely appropriate way to get at your
10 favorites of the moment, with the caveat
that you don't necessarily have to agree
with the taxonomy. That is, I'd say Barry
Ritholtz, Felix Salmon, Paul Kedrosky and
I aren't really economics bloggers in the
sense that Mark Thoma or Cowen/Tabarrok
or Hamilton/Chinn are.
Iyigun (Good day)Blog is also missing. http://muratiyigun.blogspot.com/ Mr. Iyigun offers Marginal Middle Eastern
Perspectives on Economics, Politics & Development.
Dean Baker's "Beat the Press" is unique
in providing timely commentary on contemporary
press treatment of economic issues. It deserves
a much wider readership.
(although what do I know? Mr. Delong
once said on this site that I penned the
worst article ever to appear in the WSJ
- possibly because he missed the fact that
it was what I considered a rather obvious
joke!)
(although what do I know? Mr. Delong
once said on this site that I penned the
worst article ever to appear in the WSJ
- possibly because he missed the fact that
it was what I considered a rather obvious
joke!)
(although what do I know? Mr. Delong
once said on this site that I penned the
worst article ever to appear in the WSJ
- possibly because he missed the fact that
it was what I considered a rather obvious
joke!)
I second Naked Capitalism and Calculated
Risk, especially in light of his being one
of the only ones who accurately foretold
in some detail. the housing crisis
Brad
Delong's shouldn't be near the list. He
rarely writes anything anymore, just linking
to other people who do the hard work.
Mankiw is similar but worse. Half is
posts are just self-promotional.
No one's mentioned it, but I think the blog
is also an amazing underdog (underpig?)
story-- that an anonymous woman whose credentials
aren't some degree or professorship, but
just mastery of craft could be cited by
so many as one of the top ten is an achievement
on her part, but no small indictment of
the economics establishment. Yes, she has
a great partner, but we all read her for
her snarkiness, the same way we watch car
races for the crashes.
At least four of those--Fox, Salmon, Kedrosky,
Ritholtz--are Finance blogs, not Economics
ones. (WSJ is open for argument, but not
much of one.)
Which is my argument against
Yves Smith and, to a lesser extent, CR/Tantaville.
Hamilton/Chinn no question. AB, no question
(bias admitted; it would be a clearer choice
if you skiogs, it would be Blattman or Rodrik,
Capital Gains and Games (Samwick et al.),
Econospeak, Stumbling and Mumbling, and
Polley, with Economist Mom on deck. Which
gives you a spectrum--that's the English
translation of Brooks's argumentfor CG&G
and EconMom--and one to keep attention on
development.
Posted by: g | July 24, 2008 at 04:05 PM
I know,I know. Brad DeLongs Weblog is missing. Its disheartening, the amount of ignorance in the world. Suffice to say, knowledgeable people know the best economic weblogs. We don't need no stinkin list makers.Posted by: Joe | July 24, 2008 at 04:24 PM
How about the lack of a non-US-based blog?I thought 'www' was an acronym for World Wide Web.
Posted by: Stephen Gordon | July 24, 2008 at 04:28 PM
A case, I think, of the earth is a globular versus the earth is flat. Views differ.Posted by: Joe | July 24, 2008 at 04:28 PM
Whuh? No Luskin?Posted by: jerry | July 24, 2008 at 04:30 PM
No Calculated Risk? Seriously?Posted by: Paul | July 24, 2008 at 04:33 PM
Dani Rodrik's blog on development economics really needs to be on here (http://rodrik.typepad.com/). He's one of the best development economists around and his blog is always well written, fair and interesting.He really needs to be on any list of the top 10 economics related blogs.
Posted by: Alex B | July 24, 2008 at 04:44 PM
Mankiw's blog and econlog by caplan and kling. Also, how about abnormal returns as a blog of blogs?.Posted by: robby | July 24, 2008 at 05:10 PM
Calculated Risk needs to be way up there.Posted by: Emma Anne | July 24, 2008 at 05:19 PM
What about Robert Reich's blog:http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Dr. Steven J. Balassi | July 24, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Mankiw doesn't write enough to rate I think. I agree on Arnold Kling.You need one right winger at least, if no other reason than the debate, if you don't like Luskin what about Cafe Hayek?
Also, I think Rodrick is good if you are economist, he is too hard to understand if not. So that one depends on what you are rating for, the general public or economists.
On that score, maybe Jane Galt, er Megan McArdle? She gets a lot of eyeballs and has a way of sparking debate with the way she writes. But she is not even an economist, so maybe not on that basis.
Posted by: napablogger | July 24, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Perhaps it should be the Top 25 economic's blogs? I don't think 10 will do justice to the diversity of our subject and viewpoints.Posted by: Dr. Steven J. Balassi | July 24, 2008 at 05:22 PM
I use Thoma, Kedrosky, Hamilton, Krugman. I also subscribe to DeLong, Naked Capitalism, Cassandra Does Tokyo, Brad Setser, William Polley; and Calculated Risk until they dropped the full RSS feeds...I try and get minimal overlap but minimal gaps as well...
Posted by: PeeDee | July 24, 2008 at 05:42 PM
I follow Nouriel Roubini when he's free...not a monitor subscriber. Along with others mentioned here, including this site and Calculated Risk. Brad Setser's good, too.Posted by: anon | July 24, 2008 at 06:07 PM
I find Tyler Cowen to be utterly unreadable.He is amongst the biggest of all the right wing hacks, only he is somewhat more eloquent than the obvious morons like Luskin. That eloquence allows him to get away with saying really stupid stuff.
EXAMPLE: His tirade about "Predatory Borrowing" was a huge embarrassment, for him as well as the NYT. It revealed him to be a clueless idealogue, guilty of the most egregious rightwingnuttery. He is unworthy of any thinking person's further time.
Posted by: Adam Smith | July 24, 2008 at 06:38 PM
Musts include blogs are Calculated risk and Naked CapitalismPosted by: plschwartz | July 24, 2008 at 06:54 PM
Impossible to list ten I think. I like Barry Ritholtz but I don't think he's top ten so I'd knock him out and replace him with yourself. But then what to do with Calculated Risk, Brad Setser, Naked Capitalism, Wlliam Poley, Dani Rodrik? That's a Top Fifteen. Glad to see someone besides me finds Tyler Cowen intolerable though.Posted by: AndrewBW | July 24, 2008 at 07:09 PM
Another vote for Calculated Risk, even though it isn't really an economics blog - call it applied economics with a narrow range of applications.Damn good at what it does.
Posted by: ottnott | July 24, 2008 at 07:11 PM
If we think of economics narrowly defined, I would downrate several blog that I consider essential reading (including this one and Krugman's) simply because so much of their excellent comment is outside of economics. (Just think of anything involving keywords "John Yoo", "Impeach" or "Why can't we have a better")I would also severely downweight any blog that does not host comments (such as Mankiw's).
If we define economics narrowly, my vote for top is Chinn and Hamilton.
Posted by: SvN | July 24, 2008 at 07:36 PM
Posted by: tom s. | July 24, 2008 at 07:37 PM
for a non-american blog, what about Buiter's Maverecon?Posted by: SvN | July 24, 2008 at 07:40 PM
My portal to economic news is Dean Baker's Beat the Press (http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press) from which I link to j-bradford etc. I also have it (j-bradford etc) in my favorites list.I also read:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
Calculated Risk
and Brad Setser
What I like about all these blogs is that they are empirically based, literate and analytical. If these folks refer to Marx, odds are they have actually read something Marx wrote, decided for themselves what he said that was of value and discarded the rest.
Posted by: jim | July 24, 2008 at 07:52 PM
Free Exchange must be there if any MSM-hosted site makes the cut. Becker-Posner, even though they don't post often. Mankiw, Rodrik as others have mentioned.I like WSJ Environmental Capitalism, though they may be too specialized for this.
Posted by: Amitav | July 24, 2008 at 08:28 PM
No for Ritholtz and Kedrosky -- fine for trading and markets and business but no actual understanding of economics. Justin Fox is on the edge. Yes to Brad Setser, Maverecon, and Rodrik.Posted by: Andy | July 24, 2008 at 08:56 PM
I'm completely unqualified to judge, but (seriously) shame on all of you for not including Duncan Black for his coverage of street economics.Tyler Cowen's sense of satire is a bit too dry for my taste, oftentimes I swear he's serious. So I'd pick McArdle over Cowen. Megan or Andrea.
Posted by: jerry | July 24, 2008 at 09:14 PM
Calculated Risk, yes. Marginal Revolution, no. I'd second the nominations of naked capitalism. Too many blogs are derivative but Yves Smith's is not.Posted by: surprise | July 24, 2008 at 10:12 PM
That NetNewsWire list strikes me as deeply suspect, and not just because I'm on there and you're not. But shouldn't you just give Six Apart your own totally subjective top 10 list and ignore the Web 2.0 noise of "attention" ratings and commenters' opinions?[But this is what NetNewsWire reports *I* pay attention to. It's my *personalized* attention ranking...]
Posted by: Justin Fox | July 25, 2008 at 06:15 AM
Free Exchange is often written more like an Econ 101 lecture than most other econ blogs - that is why I like it so much.I really like Megan McArdle's Asymmetrical Information, but I would say that at most 50% of what she writes is actually about economics, the rest being culture/politics/random crap.
I also read Marginal Revolution and, of course, Grasping Reality with Both Hands.
Posted by: Craig | July 25, 2008 at 06:27 AM
Craig, you're being a little to generous. More then 75% of McArdle's stuff is crap. I'd vote for Nouriel Roubini.Posted by: CN | July 25, 2008 at 06:37 AM
Scratch my previous comment. I misunderstood the NetNewsWire attention ranking. I've read up on it since, and if I understand correctly it ranks the blogs that YOU pay the most attention to. So of course you're not on the list. And it strikes me as an entirely appropriate way to get at your 10 favorites of the moment, with the caveat that you don't necessarily have to agree with the taxonomy. That is, I'd say Barry Ritholtz, Felix Salmon, Paul Kedrosky and I aren't really economics bloggers in the sense that Mark Thoma or Cowen/Tabarrok or Hamilton/Chinn are.Posted by: Justin Fox | July 25, 2008 at 06:46 AM
2 top economics blogs missing from that list:Calculated Risk
Beat the Press (Dean Baker)
Kedrosky and Salmon are great *great* blogs, but they're more about investment markets than economics.
Posted by: peatey | July 25, 2008 at 07:10 AM
Iyigun (Good day)Blog is also missing.http://muratiyigun.blogspot.com/
Mr. Iyigun offers Marginal Middle Eastern Perspectives on Economics, Politics & Development.
Posted by: Said Salih KAYMAKCI | July 25, 2008 at 08:07 AM
i'd vote for calculated risk and naked capitalismPosted by: ernie | July 25, 2008 at 08:55 AM
Dean Baker's "Beat the Press" is unique in providing timely commentary on contemporary press treatment of economic issues. It deserves a much wider readership.Posted by: Rogermac | July 25, 2008 at 09:33 AM
"Kedrosky and Salmon are great *great* blogs, but they're more about investment markets than economics"agree
Posted by: jamzo | July 25, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Two more essentials: Naked CapitalismChina Financial Markets (http://www.piaohaoreport.sampasite.com/)
Both terrific.
Posted by: dissent | July 25, 2008 at 12:13 PM
Frank the sales forecaster -- I have never "assured" anyone about anything in my life.Perhaps you might care to forward that email to me ? I have no clue as to what you are referring to . . .
Posted by: Barry Ritholtz | July 25, 2008 at 01:05 PM
The two up-and-comers offering oases of reason in a desert of partisan blogs:Capital Gains and Games (www.capitalgamesandgames.com)
EconomistMom (www.EconomistMom.com)
Posted by: Brooks | July 25, 2008 at 01:45 PM
Chris Blattman's blog is tops for development.chrisblattman.blogspot.com
Posted by: Phil | July 25, 2008 at 02:57 PM
Naked Capitalism certainly belongs on the list.(although what do I know? Mr. Delong once said on this site that I penned the worst article ever to appear in the WSJ - possibly because he missed the fact that it was what I considered a rather obvious joke!)
Posted by: rob cyran | July 25, 2008 at 04:32 PM
Naked Capitalism certainly belongs on the list.(although what do I know? Mr. Delong once said on this site that I penned the worst article ever to appear in the WSJ - possibly because he missed the fact that it was what I considered a rather obvious joke!)
Posted by: rob cyran | July 25, 2008 at 04:33 PM
Naked Capitalism certainly belongs on the list.(although what do I know? Mr. Delong once said on this site that I penned the worst article ever to appear in the WSJ - possibly because he missed the fact that it was what I considered a rather obvious joke!)
Posted by: rob cyran | July 25, 2008 at 04:34 PM
sorry for triple post - my connection flipped out on me.Posted by: rob cyran | July 25, 2008 at 04:37 PM
I second Naked Capitalism and Calculated Risk, especially in light of his being one of the only ones who accurately foretold in some detail. the housing crisisBrad Delong's shouldn't be near the list. He rarely writes anything anymore, just linking to other people who do the hard work.
Mankiw is similar but worse. Half is posts are just self-promotional.
Posted by: RN | July 25, 2008 at 08:12 PM
Here's another vote for Calculated Risk.No one's mentioned it, but I think the blog is also an amazing underdog (underpig?) story-- that an anonymous woman whose credentials aren't some degree or professorship, but just mastery of craft could be cited by so many as one of the top ten is an achievement on her part, but no small indictment of the economics establishment. Yes, she has a great partner, but we all read her for her snarkiness, the same way we watch car races for the crashes.
Posted by: smc | July 25, 2008 at 09:36 PM
Oh, Stumbling and Mumbling.http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com
Posted by: tom s. | July 26, 2008 at 05:30 AM
One more vote for Willem Buiter's . Alas, maverecon takes off for vacation tomorrow and will not resume blogging until August 28.Posted by: fred Thompson | July 26, 2008 at 04:29 PM
The Mises Institutehttp://www.Mises.org
Posted by: Chris | July 26, 2008 at 06:11 PM
At least four of those--Fox, Salmon, Kedrosky, Ritholtz--are Finance blogs, not Economics ones. (WSJ is open for argument, but not much of one.)Which is my argument against Yves Smith and, to a lesser extent, CR/Tantaville.
Hamilton/Chinn no question. AB, no question (bias admitted; it would be a clearer choice if you skiogs, it would be Blattman or Rodrik, Capital Gains and Games (Samwick et al.), Econospeak, Stumbling and Mumbling, and Polley, with Economist Mom on deck. Which gives you a spectrum--that's the English translation of Brooks's argumentfor CG&G and EconMom--and one to keep attention on development.