Economics, Literature and Scepticism

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About Me

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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.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Links

Posted by Simon Halliday | Saturday, February 21, 2009 | Category: | 0 comments

Articles and Blog Posts
Willem Buiter - Capital Controls
New Scientist - Are We About to Eliminate AIDS?
Economist - Gesticulating Helps Children to Learn
Dan Hamermesh - An Economics Rap
Brad DeLong (in The Week) - End Times for Milton Friedman?
Seed - Adapting to a new economy (on evolutionary economics, I am a fan of the notion)
Axel Leijonhufvud - No Ordinary Recession
Vox - Volunteering and the State

Recent Essays I've Read
Emily Bernard - Teaching the 'N-word'
James McConkey - What Kind of father am I?
Nassim Taleb -The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics

A fantastic resource for lectures online: Academic Earth.

A good poem: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Christabel

Thursday, February 12, 2009

SA ranks 2nd Worldwide in budget openness

Posted by Simon Halliday | Thursday, February 12, 2009 | Category: , | 0 comments

Duncan Green, at From Poverty to Power, comments on the recently released 'Open Budget Initiative'. What makes me happy is that SA is one of the top ranked for budget transparency protocols. That is fantastic.

Green's comment:

Only five countries of the 85 surveyed—France, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States—make extensive information publicly available as required by generally accepted good public financial management practices.


This is really great for SA, especially in the current climate where you want to know what the government of the country in which you are investing is intending to do. Well done SA. Well done Trevor.