I gave a talk to a local business group about blogs, Twitter, social media and all that, and one of the participants emailed asking for blog recommendations to learn more about economics. Here’s what I suggested.
I think Umair Haque is by far the most interesting ‘business strategy’ writer right now. Strategy has to take account of economics, and he’s pointing the way forward.
It would be hard to leave out Paul Krugman, having just won the Nobel Prize and all. I happen to agree with his politics, but he’s worth reading even if you don’t, simply because he’s so dang smart.
Barry Ritholtz called BS on the housing market several years ago, and his irreverent take on things keeps him in my regular reading list. You will learn a lot about how to interpret relevant numbers and statistics from him.
Nouriel Rorbini is SUPER-smart, and was also a contrarian to the bubble mentality. His predictions will probably be scary, and more-so once you notice that he’s been right most of the time.
There’s the Freakonomics blog which is always interesting for always-different reasons.
Locally, Andrew Samwick of Dartmouth has always had good pointers and a take on things that doesn’t always line up with my way of thinking.
Tyler Cowen gets a lot of linklove, and though I don’t read him often, it’s good to check in once in a while.
The Calculated Risk blog is interesting, as is The Cunning Realist in that they are anonymous, but the insight is obviously deep and worthwhile.
Probably the most important thing to do is follow links in the posts. When you find an author you like, and they link somewhere, it’s like a citation to the background source. You’ll often find good related blogs this way.
Also, look at blogrolls. These are the links of blogs the author scans regularly, something of a recommendation – “if you like this, you’ll probably like that.” For instance, the blogroll at Barry Ritholtz’s blog is excellent for the econ topic.
January 9, 2009