Cowen on the Economy

If questions and anxieties about the current state of the economy are something you know a thing or two about, might I suggest that you read a new bit on the Economist?

Tyler Cowen, a well-known economist and co-author of one of my favorite blogs, marginal revolution, was asked a number of questions about the state of the economy. One of the questions asked:

"What has most surprised you about the current economic downturn?"

To which TC said:

"That it happened with such severity. As an economist I grew up reading and thinking about two formative events. The first was the crash of the real estate bubble in the late 1980s, preceded by the stock market crash in 1987. The second was the Third World debt crisis of the early and mid-1980s. Both were bad, but for the United States neither were like the last two years. I’ve never been a believer in any of the extreme forms of the efficient markets hypothesis, but those events made me overly complacent about how badly crashes and excess leverage can turn out. In the early 1980s I expected widespread insolvency for major U.S. banks and when they muddled through I ended up overrating their ability to do the same again."

Read the rest of it here.

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Cultural Generalizations: Easy, Tyler!

The well-known economist, Tyler Cowen is a regular blogger. I read him. I found one of his recent blogs a tad too, well, culturally marked. I reckon, stereotypes can be seen as a learning tool but, more often than not, they manage to blur cultural understanding.

Here is a snippet of his post:

'A group of Swiss businessmen will hear first Pascal Lamy on economic globalization and then me [ie Tyler Cowen] on cultural globalization.

I must keep in mind the fundamental principles of speaking to the Swiss. Unlike virtually all American audiences, the listeners do not expect to be entertained. Efforts to entertain will insult some of them. I need not reach my main point until the end of the talk. Taxonomy for its own sake is not detested, but PowerPoint is viewed with suspicion.'


This is why this post bothered me. Cowen was in Switzerland to talk about 'cultural globalization' yet the post oozes cultural stereotypes. The tone struck me as a tad colonial.

The Swiss don't enjoy humorous remarks, says Cowen, but wait, since he is writing predominantly for an American blogger audience, 'Swiss' jokes may be used. My question is, at whose expense?

After all, as he notes in his post, American audiences like to be entertained.