I saw there was a journal club for general science, but it mainly covers topics that i find hard to get into. I do like to read and discuss on social sciences and humanities. Like in reading and discussing ancient political thinkers or philosophers. Anyone interested in this?

Oh yesh.

Cool!

Any interests, Paul?

I would be in. I just noticed the thread about the journal club for the science for a few days ago. I was thinking about joining, although I am not sure how much of it I will understand. I also figured they wouldn't have much use for my not real science economic articles.

As far as topics I'm not real picky. Since I am majoring in economics and it is a pretty broad field that overlaps the work of many different fields almost any topic will suit me.

Do you have some specific topics or articles that you like?

Daan wrote:Do you have some specific topics or articles that you like?

I really don't have any preferences as far as topics goes. As far as articles, are we looking for new articles/research? I was thinking that some older influential publications might be of interest as they provide foundations for a lot of the new research. My other thread has some influential ones published by the AEA. I'll list a few potential economic articles we could use.

Here are a few older publications
Arrow, Kenneth. Uncertainty and the Economics of Medical Care. American Economic Review, 1963.

Becker, Gary. Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy, 1968

Friedman, Milton. The Role of Monetary Policy. American Economic Review. 1968

George Akerloff and Rachel Kranton. Identity and Economics. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2000.

Here is some newer research that I have recently downloaded that may be of interest.
Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson. Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth. 2007.

Charles Calmoris, Joseph Mason, and David Wheelock. Did Doubling the Reserve Requirements Cause the Recession of 1937-38? A Microeconomic Approach. 2011. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Eggertsson, Gauti. What Fiscal Policy is Effective at the Zero Lower Bound. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2009.

Hess Chung, Jean Phillipe-Laforte, David Reifschneider, and John Williams. Have We Underestimated the Likelihood and Severity of Zero Lower Bound Events? FRBSF 2011.


Judging from the current events board perhaps I should throw in some choices on trade, inequality, min. wage, and currency areas. Perhaps none of these will be of interest but I thought that maybe this will at least get the discussion moving.

Milton Friedman is well-known. I have never read him, because i don't like im. But we could do his text. You will probably know the most of the material. Identity and economics sounds like a nice topic, but i don't know what's behind it.

I have been mainly occupied with my study as well, history in my case. Normally i read books. I am trying to find some good articles, but i don't know where to look at them. At the university we used databases, which could only be accessed if had the proper password. But, i will look for something.

I have tried to find some names, but it is hard to read for free. So, i think it is important to have access to a good library.

Daan wrote:Milton Friedman is well-known. I have never read him, because i don't like im. But we could do his text. You will probably know the most of the material. Identity and economics sounds like a nice topic, but i don't know what's behind it.

I have been mainly occupied with my study as well, history in my case. Normally i read books. I am trying to find some good articles, but i don't know where to look at them. At the university we used databases, which could only be accessed if had the proper password. But, i will look for something.

I haven't read a lot of Milton Friedman aside from that I own his book Free to Choose. I am probably familiar with most of the material though. Here is the abstract for Identity Economics by Akerlof and Kranton.

This paper considers how identity, a person's sense of self, affects economic outcomes. We incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity into an economic model of behavior. In the utility function we propose, identity is associated with different social categories and how people in these categories should behave. We then construct a simple game-theoretic model showing how identity can affect individual interactions. The paper adapts these models to gender discrimination in the workplace, the economics of poverty and social exclusion, and the household division of labor. In each case, the inclusion of identity substantively changes conclusions of previous economic analysis.

They published a book on the subject last year.

The identity economics seems very interesting. Though, i think i have a couple of predudices in advance. These predudices originate from reading the newspaper, so i could try to find the right article that exactly describes my views. And than discuss both articles.

I think it is better not to be prejudiced and be more open.