Prof. Peter Temin

Prof. Peter Temin (Ph.D., M.I.T.) is the Elisha Gray II Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Massachusets Institute of Technology. His books include The New Economic History (1972), Lessons From the Great Depression (1989), and The Roman Market Economy (2013).

You have written a lot about the economics of the Roman Empire. Were you interested in Rome or economics first, and what brought these two into contact?

I read Moses Finley's book, The Ancient Economy (1973) and been disappointed with the level of economic analysis in it, but I did not start to write about the ancient economy until many decades later.  I hope that my work on ancient economies has enabled others to go further in that field than I could.

What changes have you seen in how economics is taught since you were a student?

Economics now is taught with much more sophisticated mathematics than when I was a student.  This has led to better econometrics and microeconomics, but it has not helped much in macroeconomics.  That is why I wrote a small book on Keynesian economics a few years ago.  And my latest book, The Vanishing Middle Class (2017), is based on a simple model of economic development.

Prof. Josh Hendrickson

Josh Hendrickson (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is Associate Proffessor of Economics at Ole Miss University. He blogs at everydayecon.wordpress.com.


 
What made you decide to blog about economics when there are so many other blogs already?

I decided to start blogging back when I was in graduate school. There were not as many blogs then as there are now. I saw it as a way to interact with economists and work out my ideas. Writing not only forces you to think carefully about ideas, but also to learn how to present those ideas clearly (I don't pretend that my presentation is always clear, but I like to think I'm asymptotically approaching clarity!). Economics is less about what to think and more about how to think. To learn economics, you need to really engage with the ideas. Writing is a great way to do that. So, in other words, I started blogging out of self-interest. I'll let others decide whether this was Adam Smith's invisible hand at work.

You’ve written about Bitcoin and other forms of online monetary transfer; do you think economists have paid too little attention to it or is it a passing fad?

I'm fascinated with bitcoin. Anyone who is a monetary economist should be excited about bitcoin because cryptocurrency poses a number of theoretical questions and will also provide evidence regarding existing monetary theories. To me, I think too much of the focus to this point has been on whether or not bitcoin can overtake existing currencies -- and people have very strong opinions on this. I think the technology itself has the potential to change the way we do a lot of different things. I also think that right now, as a currency, cryptocurrencies likely have the most to offer to those in developing countries with poor financial institutions and untrustworthy governments than the developed world. This raises a lot of political economy questions as well. As far as my overall opinion, I have no idea if this is a fad or a revolutionary idea, but I'm excited to watch things play out. This is about as close to a natural experiment as we get in monetary economics!

Prof. Angela Dills

Angela Dills (Ph.D., Boston University), is Professor of Economics and Gimelstob-Landry Distinguished Professor for Regional Economic Development at Western Carolina University. Her research interests are in public economics and labor economics,  with special interests in the economics of education, crime, and health. She has received many awards for her teachng, including the National Council on Economic Education and the Excellence in Research Reward from the WCU College of Business.



What concepts are most difficult for economics students to grasp?

Comparative advantage is frequently a difficult concept for students to grasp. Students typically can figure out how to calculate opportunity cost for a given person or country. But to also change some students' intuition about trade between two people as being exploitative for the weaker person can take more effort. In a related vein, when we discuss supply and demand and market competition, many students enter the course thinking that a producers' goal is to sell more output than their competition; convincing them that the optimal choice is to do the best the producer can (profit maximize) instead of trying to do better than someone else (market share maximize) can go against their existing beliefs.

Are there any books that were important to your development as an economist? 

I love to read but, reflecting on your question, cannot point to a specific book that was important to me in my work as an economist. I enjoy reading pop-economics books (Freakonomics, Naked Economics, and the like), particularly as an instructor, to find better and more interesting ways to explain concepts to those new to economics. One book that really helped me to better understand political discourse was Thomas Sowell's A Conflict of Visions.