Mostly macro today.
1. Robust debates.
There’s been a bit of a tussle of late, which started with Olli Rehn at the EU taking offence at people disagreeing with him. As one might expect, Prof. Krugman is in the middle of all this, and the action has moved to Jeffrey Sachs. DeLong and EconoSpeak have the latest installments. Krugman himself, meanwhile, has responded to a fairly epic straw-man attack by providing a clear statement of what he actually thinks, based on what the evidence actually is.
2. Austerians still at it.
The IMF have been disagreeing with Osborne again. Jonathan Portes catches David Cameron misrepresenting the IFS and and NIESR, as well as the OBR, making the recent speech quite the plum for active mendacity from the Prime Minister. Portes goes on to take apart Cameron’s view in detail. And Chris Dillow has a first-class look at the reasons we need, not a small stimulus, but actually a really large one, if unemployment is to come down enough to make a real difference to aggregate demand and social insurance spending.
3. Meta-points from Ezra Klein.
The world of freelance writing has had its own recent controversy, centred around The Atlantic and the economics of writing for exposure. WonkBlog has a first-class discussion of the impact of online content on journalism and issues writing, and goes straight to the source (as it were).
Better Giants 