My weekly reading for August 4, 2024

The list this week is quite short. It reflects only slightly less reading. It mainly reflects that I think less about what I read because I am dealing with some personal issues.

by Timothy Taylor, Conversable economistJuly 29, 2024.

Now to the excerpt:

In discussions about the US’s international economic ties, it sometimes feels a bit like China is the only other country worth mentioning. In a short essay, Daniel Hamilton of the Brookings Institution compiled a list of America’s international economic ties “Who is America’s most important commercial partner? (Hint: it’s not China.)”(March 21, 2024). Here is a table from his article:

If you managed not to notice the image, before you click the link or read below, guess which country is the United States’ No. 1 trading partner.

Timothy further points out that, measured in goods traded, the top 4 in 2022 were, in order, the EU ($904.1 billion), Canada (793.1 billion), Mexico ($779.1 billion) and China (690. 3 billion). The figures are exports added to imports.

by Steven E. Landsburg, Wall Street JournalAugust 2, 2024.

Extract:

Price theory seems to be disappearing from the economics curriculum. When I look at the course offerings of the top dozens of economics departments, I see that there are many more courses offered in theoretical microeconomics and far fewer in price theory than five years ago. I’ve talked to many economists who have noted the same thing.

I’m not sure why this happens. Perhaps it is driven by students demanding courses in which they can succeed by memorizing the textbook rather than learning to think. But if economics students don’t learn how to think about economics, who will?

This ties in nicely with the recent discussions about economics education on this site. See here and here.