Monday, January 31, 2011

Poorest Brazilians are as poor as the world's poorest...

...and the richest Brazilians are as rich as the world's richest. Furthermore, the median Brazilian has an income close to the poorest 5% Americans.
Very cool graph (via Economix; I suggest the whole post):

The graph comes from "The Haves and the Have-Nots,” by Brancko Milanovic. (He is the coauthor (with Lindert and Williamson) of a great paper).

Friday, January 28, 2011

China overtakes USA!!!

In 2008, the China's GDP per capita was US$6,725. This is a little bit higher than the GDP per capita of the USA... in 1928! Source: Maddison.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Happy Birthday, prof Coase!

On December 29th, we has turned 100 year old. Amazing. He is still productive and in July his new book will be available: How China Became Capitalist. Here goes a brilliant recent interview . Excerpts:

WN: (...) You have high hopes that the future of economics is in China. What makes you think so?

RC: It is obvious. It is the size of Chinese population. A new idea is always accepted only by a small proportion of the population. But a small proportion of the Chinese is a big number.

(...)

RC: I am now 100 years old. At my stage, life requires a constant effort. As I told you many times, do not get old. (...)
Coase's Theorem and Ricardo's Comparative Advantage are the best single ideas in Economics. Simple, non-trivial and even inteligent people find it hard to grasp. In his twenties, Coase had already proved that he was a genius. The question posed in The Nature of the Firm "Why do firms exist?" opened a whole new research program and has changed economic thought forever. The answer, almost everybody agree, is transaction costs.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Spatial Econometrics Summer School - Rome 2011

Here. Instructors and presenters: Paelinck, Greene, Kelejian, Pesaran, Baltagi, Arbia and Bivand. Wow!

Sunday, January 16, 2011