Economics, Literature and Scepticism

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I am a PhD student in Economics. I am originally from South Africa and plan to return there after my PhD. I completed my M. Comm in Economics and my MA In Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Cape Town, where I worked as a lecturer before starting my PhD.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Financial Crisis Stuff

Posted by Simon Halliday | Monday, October 06, 2008 | Category: , |

As the token economist amongst friends and family, I thought I would recommend the following links on the current financial crisis.

First, Wikipedia has a fantastic timeline of the current crisis, under the title 'Subprime Crisis Impact Timeline'.

Second, you can peruse these useful notes by Roger Congleton of GMU (they follow the GMU line somewhat, so take the ideology of them with a pinch of salt, but read them anyway).

Third, there is a new blog documenting the financial crisis: The Money Meltdown.

Fourth, there are several blogs that I read with commentary on the crisis that I would recommend: Marginal Revolution, The Semi-daily Journal of Brad DeLong, Greg Mankiw, Paul Krugman and Mark Thoma's Economist's View. Mankiw regularly gives interesting and brief insights, as well as giving links to good articles by prominent individuals. Thoma cites articles at length and gives his own commentary.

Fifth, don't believe what everyone has to tell you about Adam Smith and the financial crisis. Read what Gavin Kennedy has to say here, here and here on his blog 'Adam Smith's Lost Legacy'.

Sixth, Duncan Green, the head of research for Oxfam, maintains a blog and has couple of posts on the topic of the financial crisis and development, the most interesting post of which is a discussion of what $700bn would do for global development.

Lastly, some audio and video stuff. EconTalk host Russ Roberts chats with Arnold Kling on the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I found this very useful for helping me to understand what exactly they did and, thus, how they impacted on the financial crisis. Roberts also interviewed Robert Shiller (of the Case-Shiller (housing) index fame) on housing bubbles, which I found interesting. UChannel, another audio and film 'academic' web resource, has a discussion featuring Paul Krugman and Alan Blinder, both of whom have been quite outspoken on the crisis and its possible solutions. Krugman especially is a fan of nationalizing Fannie and Freddie.

Ok, that's enough for now and should sate any financial crisis appetite for the moment.

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