An Interesting Article by A British Economist on Creativity And Other Thoughts on Economists and Creativity

This probably goes to many conversations that I've had with some of my friends lately. What makes the outside world work? Here's a very short and brief blog post on that same need entitled "Why Creativity Needs Economists and Economists Need Creativity". In his short blog post, it goes through what is necessary for graduates in Economics to apply creativity to whatever they do. I think this is perhaps more relevant to those who are involved in Econ Research as well. What do I mean by this? I refer it to how Paul Samuelson deeply embedded rigorous mathematical principles into his honorable introduction of Keynesian Economics into the deeply flawed neoclassical framework of which economists in the past had operated.

By reading both the Bernanke interpretations of the Great Depression and Paul Samuelson's landmark dissertation, we can observe that the field itself need to be constantly changed if it will be effective in its prediction of financial crises. I have read several papers that mentioned that these uncommon and misplaced financial crises could be predicted, but I beg to differ. Maybe researchers can deviate from the established framework that was proven wrong during the latest Great Recession of 2008 and try to think creatively of new models and new solutions. I believe that these words could be applied to economic theory on economic and financial crises as a whole. This is a mystery that I'm constantly thinking of ways to resolve this as I've explored all corners of current economic publications. I've certainly found some interesting arguments, but I think a concrete answer has to yet to be fully found on the most important theoretical questions. Do we need to throw out many of the current foundations of macroeconomics in order to found something new and fresh? Or can we browse through the explanations of many theorists such as Keynes, Samuelson, Lucas, Barro, etc? I think there needs to be something new and original to be introduced into this equation and hopefully something will come into fruition in the coming years.

My Reading List for January and February of 2016 and a Personal Update

As announced in my last post, I have purchased a shelf-full of books at the Harvard Book Store Warehouse Sale, which means they will mostly populate my reading list for the month of January and February. I have decided to lump these two reading lists together as I have spent most of last month and this month busy with reading countless articles that pertain to my long-term personal interests.

This is where the personal update comes into hand: I have decided to spend the next couple of months researching a long term personal interest of mine and to put together something concrete over the first couple months of the year. If you are curious, writing a couple of serious articles is one of my resolutions for the exciting new year of 2016! I will try to summarize what I will write in these particular articles in maybe several couple brief blog posts. I will also try to post more of what I haven't posted onto this blog as some related information is on my old computer that is currently disabled. Let's not delay it anymore and I will be posting new information onto this blog in the coming month!

Jan, Feb 2016 Reading List:

Econ-Related Books:
1. The Selected Works of Joseph Stiglitz, Volume I and Volume II (Will definitely not finish at the end of this month as I will be reading and re-reading them in the coming months and years!)
2. Ronald Coase, Ning Wang - How China Became Capitalist
3. Jean Tirole - The Theory of Industrial Organization (Just like the Stiglitz Book: I will be actively referencing this book throughout the coming months and years and will probably also reference other similar books)

Non-Econ Related Books:
1. Martha Nussbaum - Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values)
2. Martha Nussbaum - Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

I will also be catching up on previous backlogs of books that I have posted here and in other places and try to finish them as well.