Jagdish Bhagwati reviews criticism on trade

I had mentioned earlier if Ricardo was given a wish he would want to claer the controversies around Trade. However, he may not need to till we have economists like Jagdish Bhagwati around.

In this fantastic paper given at WTO (the way WTO has failed is a spectacular story)  he reviews the criticism on trade. He divides it into three periods of criticism and says:

The truth of the matter is that free trade is alive and well among economists, their analytical arguments in favour of it, developed with great sophistication in the postwar theory of commercial policy, having hardly been dented by any original arguments by the few economists, including Alan Blinder in today’s debate, arrayed against it.

Read the paper for more details.

Financial Education: is teaching ABC enough?

My earlier article on Finance becoming increasingly Greek pushed me into writing a paper on the subject.

I have written a paper evaluating the various financial education programs and how it shapes up given the developments in financial markets. Needless to say the financial education programs are very basic and basically that is their purpose. However, developments in financial markets are anything but basic. But then that looks the way going forward as well.

This puts policymakers in another dilemma amidst many other dilemmas (target growth or inflation, support or not support failing financial firms etc.)

Assorted Links

1. WSJ Blog says ECB  is from Mars and Fed from Venus

2. Krugman points auctioin rate security market has frozen

3. NB pointsto a conference which uses beh eco for pricing

4. Mankiw points fiscal stimulus is working

5. DB Blog says if you want your population to grow, reform

6. Econbrowser points to  assorted links