The meme

I never do these things but hey, there's always the first time.
Through Economic Investigations

•My Favorite Economist: (assuming we’re sticking to living economists) I got interested in Economics by reading Paul Krugman. Once I started studying it seriously it was still Krugman, now sharing a place with Robert Lucas. Then I got into theory for awhile and at that point I was awed (and still am) by Robert Aumann. Then moved on to the mathematically simpler but no less insightful work of Oded Galor on his unified theory of growth and the stuff by Acemoglu on growth, institutions, directed technological change and relationship between economics and democracy.

•The Best Economics Writer:For a popular audience, it’s still Krugman (and Friedman). Samuelson’s actually a pretty decent writer but he likes to show of his writing skills too much too often. Greg Clark’s an excellent writer as well.

•My Greatest Economics Frustration: Uhhh… it’s still econometrics. I understand a lot more than I did once but still have trouble getting an “intuitive feel” for a lot of the fancy stuff. When I can’t prove something myself or follow a proof through I feel like I don’t fully understand the result. I can follow most mathematical proofs but with econometrics my brain just shuts down. I still sort of use it as a cookbook of recipes.

•My Favorite Economics Blogger(s): They’re on right hand side of this blog. They all have strengths and weaknesses.

•My Favorite Obscure Economics Concept: (no arbitrage is obscure?). Core convergence? I also think that Intertemporal Elasticity of Substitution/Risk Aversion/Measure of diminishing marginal utility/Elasticity of labor supply with respect to wage – the notorious eta of the Stern report – is way way way more important than people realize. For one thing, there’s some theories about why, for example, we discount the future. I don’t know of any evolutionary or other theories for why we should be risk averse, other than some hand waving about tigers back in the day. But once you start thinking about it, it seems clear that the above areas of economic inquiry; how to allocate consumption over time, how to respond to risk, how does one’s welfare (evolutionary fitness?) increase with consumption and how to allocate your time between working and goofing of are all connected, so in a way it’s no surprise that’s all about one parameter.

• My Favorite Economics Book: For textbooks and all I’ll have to go with Mas-Colell, still the most comprehensive and thorough book out there, though I understand where the "too dry" complaints come from. Even though I do mostly macro I still look stuff up in it all the time. There really aren’t that many good macro textbooks out there. I don’t know, maybe Barro and Sala-i-Martin’s economic growth. For popular books … right now I’m reading Benjamin Friedman’s “Moral Consequences of Growth” which is pretty good. Easterly’s books are very good as well.

• The Biggest Economics Charlatans: Easy. Steve Keen.

• The Greatest Economic Challenge of Our Time: On the theoretical level: I agree with Gabriel on the importance of adding heterogeneity into economic models, without screwing everything up. I’d also add, getting a General Equilibrium-like theory that can meaningfully incorporate market power and non-price taking in many different settings (bringing IO to GE or GE to IO). On the practical level: sorting out the mess that growth and development have become (too many models!) in order to focus on things which we do know, which do work, and which can have actual positive impact on poor countries' economies. Quite a challenge there though.