For reasons that I do not understand, there has been a recent spurt of newpaper and news magazine articles in praise of good economists--people who are very smart, very thoughtful, and very interested in trying to make economic policy better. Such articles include:

• one on Princeton international economist Paul Krugman from Newsweek.
  • As everyone knows, I am a huge fan and admirer of M.I.T. economist Paul Krugman (even given occasional... erratic moments, like his unprovoked and unfair comments on the very capable Laura D'A. Tyson in 1992-1993).
  • This is my favorite Krugman essay: "An Unequal Exchange".
• one on the Berkeley Economics Department from The Wall Street Journal.
• one on Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin from The Wall Street Journal.
• The Wall Street Journal also has profiles of George Borjas and of Fred Bergsten that I do not have copies of.
• A not-so-serious toast in praise of my ex-freshman-roommate and very good friend Andrei Shleifer, 1999 recipient of the Clark Medal awarded biennially to the most outstanding economist under forty.

• A page on John Maynard Keynes
  • Alec Cairncross on Keynes, from the Economist
• A page on Adam Smith
• A page on Friedrich Hayek
• Allan Meltzer is not one of my favorite people
• An appalling example of the lack of economic literacy, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
• A passage about the prisoner's dilemma from William Poundstone's book of the same name. Economists will find it hilarious and thought-provoking. Others will probably find it weird...

Scattered reflections on why economists seem to me to be better--more moral, and more far-sighted--people than are other social scientists:

• Paul Kennedy on Graduate Student Unionization
• Orlando Patterson on Hiring Section Leaders