The list this week is quite short. It reflects only slightly less reading. Mainly, it reflects less thinking about what I’m reading because I’m dealing with some personal issues.

Top Five US Commercial Partners

by Timothy Taylor, Conversable Economist, July 29, 2024.

Now to the excerpt:

In discussions of US international economic ties, it sometimes feels a bit as if the only other country worth mentioning is China. Daniel Hamilton at the Brookings Institution put together a list of US international economic ties in a short essay “Who is America’s top commercial partner? (Hint: It’s not China.)”(March 21, 2024). Here’s a table from his article:

If you’ve managed not to notice the picture, then before clicking on the link or reading below, make a guess about which country is the United States’ #1 trading partner.

Timothy goes on to point out that, measured in goods traded, the top 4 in 2022, in order, were the EU ($904.1 billion), Canada (793.1 billion), Mexico ($779.1 billion), and China (690.3 billion). The numbers are exports added to imports.

What Aspiring Economists Aren’t Being Taught

by Steven E. Landsburg, Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2024.

Excerpt:

Price theory seems to be fading from the economics curriculum. Surveying the course offerings of the top few dozen economics departments, I see a lot more coursework offered in theoretical microeconomics and a lot less in price theory than I did five years ago. I’ve talked to many economists who have noticed the same thing.

I’m not sure why this is happening. Maybe it’s driven by students who demand courses in which they can succeed by memorizing the textbook rather than learning how to think. But if economics majors aren’t learning how to think about economics, then who will?

This fits nicely with recent discussions about teaching economics on this site. See here and here.