October 05, 2006
New addition to the blogroll
Gabriel Mihalache has a blog called Economic Investigations that you might want to check out. He is a self-confessed "neoclassical cowboy" who spent the summer reading David Romer's Advanced Macroeconomics and everything he could find by Robert Lucas. I think students might particularly like his blog because he comes at it from the point of view of someone who, well..., spent the summer reading Romer and Lucas. In other words, he's brimming with enthusiasm and ideas. Some of his posts would be good fodder for grad student discussions. Take a look!
Posted by William Polley at 02:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 28, 2004
I'm back
It's been a few days. It took some doing to get the new site name to work, but we're now up and running. Time to pick up where we left off.
Posted by William Polley at 01:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 12, 2004
What's in a name?
This blog is still really in the experimental stage. I have a few readers, but it's far from the readership of some of the big blogs. At least for now.
Anyway, in the last day or so, I have been doing a lot of thinking about Alan's most recent post, and thinking about the future of this blog. That's hard to do. You never know where the future will lead. But thinking about it is good exercise for the mind.
I've been thinking about what the "permanent" title of this blog will be. Academic Scribbler has been a perfect name to get things started, but I'm not sure it will fit with what I see as the long run mission of this blog. For one, it's not just about policy, economics, or academics. When Final 4 time comes around, I will blog more about basketball. I blog about math once in a while (and should do more). I blog about things that just strike me as funny, and on and on. Remember, I've only been doing this for a couple months. Most blogs I read are at least 2 or 3 years old. I'm a relative latecomer, but as we all know, blogs are springing up like dandelions on my lawn in April. I would like to stake my ground before all the good spots are taken.
Among economics blogs, some have clever economic related names: ArgMax, Marginal Revolution, Truck and Barter, and Voluntary Xchange. These are just some of the better known ones. Then there are the econ blogs with non-economic related, but clever, names: Knowledge Problem, Cold Spring Shops, and AtlanticBlog, just to name a few. Then there are those who put their name on their blog: Newmark's Door, Daniel Drezner, and Brad DeLong make my short list.
Some of the clever names are run by more than one person (Marginal Revolution and Truck and Barter, for example). They tend to be very focused. Those who take a multi-pronged approach often use their names or come up with something clever but non economic.
I find myself wanting to morph this blog just a little. I think about how it relates to what I do for a living. Everything else I write has my name on it first and foremost. I want that to be the case here too.
When I made my first few posts, I wondered if it would last. I don't know if any statistics are kept on this sort of thing, but I wonder how many blogs start out for a few weeks and then quit. When I started, I thought I might be one of those. I never figured I would enjoy it as much as I do or find it as useful as I do. But it is useful, and there is a relationship between blogging and scholarship (see here for an excellent summary). For me it helps me clarify my thoughts on certain things. I've gotten a couple ideas from blogging that may make their way into a paper someday. Plus, when you blog, you have to READ what others are writing about. That keeps you connected. There are liberal blogs and conservative blogs and middle of the roaders too. Quite frankly, the give and take in the blogosphere is better than it is on the cable news talk shows. Most of it is at a higher level too.
Finally, I am also toying with the idea of running more than one blog. I'm still giving full attention to this at first, but stay tuned.
The experiment continues, it takes new steps, it grows, and it comes of age. As a reflection of who I am and what I want this blog to be, a change is coming. To be continued...
Posted by William Polley at 06:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 01, 2004
Title inspiration
The regular readers of this blog (yes, there are some!) will notice the new look at the top of the page. It used to say, "William Polley's foray into the world of blogging." Since I've been at it a couple months now and have a pretty good set of entries to keep you reading, it's no longer a "foray." I'm here to stay.
The quote above was my inspiration for the title of my blog. It's one of my favorite Keynes quotes, and probably one of his best known. (Another well known quote of his is that "In the long run, we're all dead." But that doesn't make for a catchy blog title!)
The whole context of the quote is this.
But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
Those words were written by a revolutionary. In his writing, I sense a lament over the present "madmen in authority" whose policies were guided by academic scribblers of years past. But the General Theory ends on a slightly more hopeful note.
Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
Indeed. And so the General Theory did eventually get picked up by policy makers. Remember when Nixon said, "We are all Keynesians now."? (Well, I don't remember it, I was pretty young at the time.) Today, many would call Keynes himself a "defunct economist." Modern policymakers get their inspiration from academic scribblers like Lucas, Prescott, Krugman, and Mankiw just to name a few. Tomorrow's policymakers will get their inspiration from a new generation of academic scribblers. Some of them, no doubt, will be bloggers.
This blog will continue to comment on the current happenings of economics as well as the spectrum of policy from silly and frustrating to wise and profound. With your help, gentle reader, we can supply the voices in the air for tomorrow's madmen in authority.
Along the way, I promise to have a little fun. :)
If you're a regular reader, thanks. If you're new to the blog, welcome aboard!
Posted by William Polley at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2004
Happy birthday to the other 14,999
Technorati reports that about 15,000 blogs are created every day. That's about one every 5.8 seconds.
Posted by William Polley at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2004
A Blog is Born
Oh no, not another blog! Well, here comes another. It's something I've been thinking about doing for some time but just never got around to it. So what is this blog about? It'll be about economics, and maybe other things as I feel like it. Nice thing about a blog. It is about what you feel like writing. So here goes!
I'm an economics professor at Bradley University in Peoria, IL. That would explain the tilt that this blog will have toward things economic in nature. The title of my blog makes reference to a famous quote by a famous economist.
So, all you out there in the blogosphere, what's the quote and who said it?
Posted by William Polley at 07:42 PM | Comments (1)