Sunday, January 8, 2012

Economists are Used to Arguments... but Protests?

aThe 2012 American Economic Association Meeting is happening this weekend in Chicago.  For those of you that went, I'm very jealous.  I've tried to console myself with writing an essay (on Atlas Shrugged, of all things) and all the accompanying reading that goes with that.  But really, I'd much rather be listening to Peter Diamond and Daron Acemoglu.  One of my professors, Mark Klee, was a discussant at one of the meetings on "Analyzing Occupational Licensing Across Institution Settings."

So, I'm happy that he got that opportunity.  I can't imagine what an honor or how daunting it would be to speak at one of those events.  Normally you would simply have to worry about another economist asking some ridiculously difficult question about an aspect of your subject that you hadn't thought of... but this year there was also a call to Occupy the AEA!  It looks as though that protest has mostly boiled down to a counter conference called the People's Economic Conference.





Rather than protesting these proceedings, I would recommend some of the papers being discussed at the conference simply based on their titles and what I know about the goals of the "Occupy" movement.

"Fiscal Policy, Growth and Income Distrobution in the UK"
"The Keys to Financial Success Curriculum: Impact on Personal Finance Behaviors"
"Seeking Alpha: Excess Risk Taking and Competition for Managerial Talent"
"Trust and Investment Management: The Effects of Manager Trustworthiness on Hedge Fund Investments
"The Influence of Exotic Mortgages in the Housing Price Bubble"
"The Role of Home Equity Lending in the Recent Mortgage Crisis"
"Do We Want to Subsidize the Losers' Mortgages?  Stabilization Policy in an Age of Righteous Outrage"
"Utilizing Rawls' Theory of Justice and Law of the Peoples to Oppose Friedman's Doctrine of the Social Responsibility of the Firm"
"How People Work Together: Precis of a New Introduction to Economics, with Implications for the Social Responsibility of Business"
"The Effects of Early Intervention on Human Development and Social Outcomes"

and many more!!!

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