Geloso on Williamson on Inequality

Since Jeff Williamson died today, I want to share his best works with all of you.

The first is my favorite: Unequal Gains. Its the price-theory based explanation of American inequality (and its measurement) from the colonial era to today. That book is simply superior in every… pic.twitter.com/UEKywoXLR4

— Vincent Geloso (@VincentGeloso) September 1, 2026

The first is my favorite: Unequal Gains. Its the price-theory based explanation of American inequality (and its measurement) from the colonial era to today. That book is simply superior in every way to what people tend to like more at the time it came out. The second is really good and its also about inequality but between nations. Its basically how the West grew rich in the 1850s-1950s while the rest grew rich too but more slowly. Its a history of how terms of trade affect institutions, and development paths through a variety of mechanisms. Its basically Jeff's book to say that Marxists theories of "exploitation" and "imperialism" are basically rubbish junks that use some true facts here and there to weave an elaborate theory. An elaborate theory that basic economic (i.e., relative prices, terms of trade, institutions) theory simply beats like a tank over a piece of toast and without any normative priors. Its just a great work. The third is the underrated work of his. Its a history of how Britain adjusted to industrialization and rapid city growth. It wasnt well received but, with hindsight and decades later, it has actually held up really well. Its a bit like the movie Event Horizon. It initially got thrashed but as time passed, it became appreciated. I was re-reading it for my EC365 class at GMU and its just fun and smart. The fourth one is the fun one. Its the book that Jeff wrote soon after getting to Harvard I think. And in it, you see all the themes he is going to harp on for many years. Its basically the "distilled" Jeff that gives the great overview (at an early formative stage) of his views on inequality throughout history. Its just so much better than 99.99% of what is being commonly cited. Jeff was just great about thinking about inequality and how it emerged. And in this, you see that its coming from a pretty centrist guy. He just wanted good economics and you see it there. Its a fun read.

Chad Jones on AI

 

if ai was super-charging productivity in tech, it would attract more hiring (and it already has), especially bc all the capital is flowing to ai. *But* capital is highly concentrated. Series B is otherwise a death chasm, rn.

Public TechCos are going to be laying off ppl bc… pic.twitter.com/intMXufreL

— Random Walk (@MosesSternstein) March 6, 2026

Really bad default quote style in Newspaper theme

 

Solow Model from Wolfram

https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/SimpleSolowModel/#embed

Variance (Simply explained)

Standard deviation (simply explained)

Mokyr reviews DeLong (from Marginal Revolution)

Mokyr reviews DeLong. 

Wondering and Wandering: The Rise and Decline of Nations

Wondering and Wandering: The Rise and Decline of Nations: The Rise and Decline of Nations By Mancur Olson “The Rise and Decline of Nations” put forth Mancur Olson’s theory to explain macroeconomic ...

On Hayek

Great intellectual history here.

President Obama is trying to sell still another “jobs” program, oblivious to the fact that his last stimulus package failed to create permanent jobs. Like many politicians and academics, he is convinced that government can “grow the economy,” despite overwhelming evidence that such Keynesian programs are ineffective.

The president and his supporters are in the grip of what the economist F.A. Hayek once called the “fatal conceit” -- the idea that politicians can manage an economy according to some overall plan. Their efforts to create “green” jobs, stimulate the economy, redistribute income and manage costs in the health care system are all examples of the fatal conceit run amok. A large and modern economy, made up of hundreds of millions of participants who make spending and investment decisions by the minute, is far too complex to allow for centralized coordination. Such efforts, Hayek warned, invariably make a difficult situation worse.

Born in Austria in 1899, Hayek developed his skeptical views about power and planning in response to the catastrophes he witnessed in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. The classical liberal order of representative government and free markets had contributed to a century of relative peace and prosperity from 1815 to 1914. The rise of nationalism and socialism undermined the old order, leading to three decades of war, dislocation and depression. For Hayek, the solution to the challenges of the 20th century was to be found in the renewal of the proud tradition of classical liberalism.

Hayek set forth his views most clearly in 1944 in his now classic work, “The Road to Serfdom,” where he argued that any effort to organize society around a common economic plan will inevitably lead to a loss of freedom and a return of the common man to a condition of servitude and dependence. Hayek reminded his readers that Hitler was not just a nationalist but a socialist as well, and that his brutal tyranny developed out of a malignant synthesis of these ideas. Market liberalism, in contrast to both ideologies, follows no overall plan but allows progress to emerge out of the coordinating actions of free individuals.

Hayek wrote the book partly in response to John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who had argued a few years earlier that government could lead the economy out of depression through deficit spending. Keynes believed that this would stimulate consumer demand and private investment.

More various articles

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2833912

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c12563.pdf austrian_virtues.pdf (application/pdf Object)

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=0094
Undercounting Very Discouraged Workers - Forbes 

Michael Woodford may have written the year’s most important academic paper. Here’s why

. Microsoft Excel Converting Date Data in Text Format to Date Format - YouTube 

A Guide for the Young Economist, Second Edition - The MIT Press An empirical look at Austrian trade cycle theory 

Book Review: Enrico Moretti's "The New Geography of Jobs" - Forbes


see also 
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=0093

EconPapers: Studies in State and Local Public Finance http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/CodeAndData.pdf

Krugman misleading again

The Grumpy Economist: Krugman on optimal taxes

James M. Buchanan on Economists and the Great Recession

Statistics Using Computer Spreadsheets

(AT) Urban Economic Model: Monocentric City with Agglomerative Subcenters

Mathematics for Business and Economics: Single Equations

The problems with Randomised Controlled Trials

Mathematically Solving for the Income and Substitution Effect of a Price...

Art Laffer explains the Laffer Curve

Microeconomics Practice Problem - The Math Behind Externalities and Corr...