Naked Self-Promotion

Now is the time in the academic year when many professors order textbooks for next year.  Do you need a recommendation?  Of course not.  If you are here perusing this blog, you are probably already making a wise choice.

But perhaps you are new to teaching and need some information about my favorite textbooks.  Or perhaps you want to learn more about many of the wonderful supplements that accompany them.

If you are an instructor and are interested in learning more about any of the five versions of my principles text (shown above), the person to contact is John Carey.

If you are interested in my intermediate macroeconomics text (shown to the left), the person to contact is Scott Guile.

Future Clark Medalists

The latest rumors.

Zipf's Law

My Harvard colleague Ed Glaeser discusses an intriguing empirical regularity.

Egalitarianism: The Next Step

A blog reader alerts me to this piece from the Times of London:

Brussels decrees holidays are a human right

AN overseas holiday used to be thought of as a reward for a year’s hard work. Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidised by the taxpayer.

Under the scheme, British pensioners could be given cut-price trips to Spain, while Greek teenagers could be taken around disused mills in Manchester to experience the cultural diversity of Europe.

The idea for the subsidised tours is the brainchild of Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, who was appointed by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister.

The scheme, which could cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year, is intended to promote a sense of pride in European culture, bridge the north-south divide in the continent and prop up resorts in their off-season.

Tajani, who unveiled his plan last week at a ministerial conference in Madrid, believes the days when holidays were a luxury have gone. “Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life,” he said.

Tajani, who used to be transport commissioner, said he had been able to “affirm the rights of passengers” in his previous office and the next step was to ensure people’s “right to be tourists”.

The Anti-Mankiw Movement...

...is looking for recruits.  If you think I am "an instrument of bourgeois ideology," you may want to sign up.

Update: Kenneth Anderson says that today's students would view this as a cool back-of-the-book endorsement, as in "This instrument of bourgeois ideology will have a permanent place on the bookshelf of your mind."

Kocherlakota on the Recovery

A speech from the President of the Minneapolis Fed.  His outlook:

My own forecast calls for about 3 percent growth per year over the next two years, as opposed to the consensus view among economists, which is 3.5 percent.

The Latest from the CEA Chair

Christy Romer discusses the present state of the economy.  A tidbit:

at one point I had tentatively titled my talk "It’s Aggregate Demand, Stupid"; but my chief of staff suggested that I find something a tad more dignified.