MetaFilter posts tagged with economics and history

HET

moorooka — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:34:26 -0800

The History of Economic Thought Website contains a wealth of information on the many schools of thought in the history of economics and the issues they grappled with.

The Squares of the City

kliuless — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:11:34 -0800

Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application - "His economic theory of history explains phenomena such as the constant improvement of the human standard of living by looking primarily at just two forms of innovative ideas: technology and rules." (previously, via) BONUS: UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY - What cities have in common [1,2,3,4,5] - Great structures? [1,2,3,4,5] - The new institutionalism [1,2,3,4,5] - Norms and deliberative rationality [1,2,3,4,5]

Wasting Away in Hooverville

homunculus — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:35:20 -0800

Quit Lying About Roosevelt! "Amity Shlaes, the GOP's Great Depression philosopher-queen, couldn't be more dangerously wrong." [Via]

Depression 2009

homunculus — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:15:15 -0800

Depression 2009: What would it look like? "Lines at the ER, a television boom, emptying suburbs. A catastrophic economic downturn would feel nothing like the last one." [Via]

Adam Smith in Beijing

Abiezer — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:21:59 -0800

Adam Smith in Beijing Embedded Flash film 1hr59mins "Is US power in decline? What are we to make of the rise of China? Will a possible equalization of North-South relations herald a more brutal capitalism or a better world? Giovanni Arrighi, Joel Andreas, and David Harvey give their perspectives in this forum, for a discussion of Arrighi's 2007 book Adam Smith in Beijing. The event, filmed in Baltimore, MD, in March of 2008, was organized by the Red Emma's collective."

Planet Finance

homunculus — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:18:12 -0800

Wall Street Lays Another Egg. "Not so long ago, the dollar stood for a sum of gold, and bankers knew the people they lent to. The author charts the emergence of an abstract, even absurd world—call it Planet Finance—where mathematical models ignored both history and human nature, and value had no meaning."

Building a real financial system

kliuless — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 08:50:12 -0800

The origins of central banking or, perhaps, central planning[1,2] and a defense of fiat currency[3] in the information age. "[T]he Federal Reserve erred catastrophically in the Depression not just by failing to stem the decline in those bank deposits necessary to fuel consumer spending but also by allowing banks to fail. In so doing, the Fed destroyed the organization[4] and knowledge base that made banks trusted intermediaries between the myriads of savers with no knowledge of business prospects and the thousands of businesses with no direct ability to draw on individual savers' resources."

Steamcreditcrunch

fearfulsymmetry — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:08:11 -0800

A housing boom and bust, interbank lending rates reaching record highs, people losing faith in complex financial instruments, a stock market crash. We've seen it all before... The Great Depression of 1929? No, the Panic of 1837...

Maria Theresa Thalers

Kattullus — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:05:47 -0800

The Maria Theresa Thaler (or MTT), a coin first minted in 1741 and continuously to this day, remained legal tender in parts of the Arabian peninsula as late as 1970, where it was much prized both as a coin and for jewelry [magazine article] Incredibly important for trade between Europe and the Middle East, the MTT had a great impact on history. For more information turn to Maria Theresa's Thaler: A case of international money an indepth article about the MTT by Adrian Tschoegl.

The Rise of China

homunculus — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:01:06 -0800

The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive? "China's rise will inevitably bring the United States' unipolar moment to an end. But that does not necessarily mean a violent power struggle or the overthrow of the Western system. The U.S.-led international order can remain dominant even while integrating a more powerful China -- but only if Washington sets about strengthening that liberal order now." Long Time Coming: The Prospects for Democracy in China. "Is China democratizing? The country's leaders do not think of democracy as people in the West generally do, but they are increasingly backing local elections, judicial independence, and oversight of Chinese Communist Party officials. How far China's liberalization will ultimately go and what Chinese politics will look like when it stops are open questions." The Battle of Beijing: What happens when an authoritarian government and thousands of activists go head-to-head at the Olympics? China is about to find out.

What Happened to My Forty Acres and a Mule, Fool?

jonp72 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:26:25 -0800

40 acres and a mule has been a slogan of African-American economic aspirations ever since the legislation creating the Freedman's Bureau promised ex-slaves parcels not exceeding forty acres each, to the loyal refugees and freedmen. General William Tecumseh Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 decreed that the land on slave plantations be seized and distributed to freed slaves, but Andrew Johnson rescinded the order and vetoed expansion of the Freedman's Bureau. Both Henry Louis Gates and Dalton Conley have associated the failure to grant freed slaves their "40 acres and a mule" with the wealth gap between black and white Americans, but now an economics grad student, Melinda Miller, has brought important quantitative data to the debate in a new research paper. Using census data from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, which was forced to distribute land to freed slaves of the Cherokee tribe shortly after the Civil War, Miller has found a natural experiment that makes it possible to quantify how much the failed dreams of "40 acres of a mule" are at the root of interracial disparities of wealth. According to a fine summary by econo-blogger Tyler Cowen, Miller argues that the failure to distribute land to slaves may account for as little as 20% or as much as 75% of the black/white wealth gap.

What Will Nauru Do?

owhydididoit — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 00:27:25 -0800

Nauru was once a lovely place. Despite its small size and isolation, Nauru's story is one of monumental dimensions. Things have gotten pretty grim. But it looks like Naurans may get a reprieve of sorts. Will it be pretty?

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

sourwookie — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:44:46 -0800

Timeline of Trends and Events (1750 to 2100). Large image, lots of info. Via digg

Das Kapital (of economic texts)

Gyan — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:36:14 -0800

Archive for the History of Economic Thought

http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/

monju_bosatsu — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:53:53 -0800

Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH). From Cornell University, HEARTH is an internet resource collecting home economics texts from 1850 to 1950, including Meals that cook themselves and cut the costs, by Christine Frederick (1915), and The young woman's guide to excellence, by William A. Alcott (1852), as well as the Journal of Home Economics from 1909 to 1980.

Sociology

semmi — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 22:53:51 -0800

A hundred years of “The Protestant Ethic.” Elizabeth Kolbert on Max Weber in The New Yorker.

Shirky: Spectrum as resource

freebird — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 12:52:42 -0800

A nice article on some of the engineering and economics aspects of WiFi, and the history of frequency regulation in the USA.

tdecius — Thu, 25 Nov 1999 17:11:58 -0800

The Top Economic Events of the Twentieth Century is an interesting list. It's good to know that people truly realize the economic importance of things like the Apple II and the Web browser.