(I write a monthly-ish opinion piece for Barron’s. This is my most recent one. You can find earlier ones here.) | jwmason.org
When I first heard that Zohran Mamdani was running for mayor last fall, I admit I was skeptical. The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has an impressive track record of winning legislative races, but the mayor’s race was a challenge an order of magnitude larger. And Andrew Cuomo’s advantages—in name … Continue reading Can Zohran Do It?| J. W. Mason
It’s the 4th of July. In the empty lot by the playground, a group of Bangladeshi teenagers are setting off professional-grade fireworks. Bang, bang! BANG! Bang, whiz. Bang-bang! Sometimes one fails to go off properly; everyone steps back until it’s spent itself into the asphalt. A group of 30 or 40 people, families with kids, black white whatever, watches from a safe distance. A couple of kids on bikes go round and round. At one point it seems like the fireworks are finished; then a group...| J. W. Mason
(I write a monthlyish opinion piece for Barron’s. A shorter version of this post appeared there in June 2025. My previous pieces are here.)| J. W. Mason
I’ve mentioned various times on this blog that Arjun Jayadev and I have been writing a book about money. The book, now called Against Money, is finally done: After two rounds of revisions, Arjun and I sent the final manuscript to the publisher earlier this month.1 The book itself will not be coming out until next spring; I guess that’s just the kind of schedule academic publishers work on. But since I recently had to write up a summary of the book, I thought I’d share it here a bit in a...| J. W. Mason
From The Last Cruze, by LaToya Ruby Frazier. Laura and I went to see her show at MOMA this past summer. If I’d been able to find the coffee-table book version, it would be on this list.Books I read in 2024:| J. W. Mason
I teach economics at John Jay College of the City University of New York, home of one of the country’s leading MA programs in heterodox economics. And we are accepting applications for Fall 2025.| J. W. Mason
(I write a monthlyish opinion piece for Barron’s. This one was published there in April. My previous pieces are here.) | J. W. Mason
A while back I had an interesting conversation with my older son, who is in 7th grade. He was telling me about various new rules his school had introduced — like only two bathroom breaks per week per class — which, we agreed, did not make much sense. But then he added: It seems like the teachers also know that the rules don’t make sense. If you talk to them about it, it’s pretty clear that this is something that they’ve just been told they have to say. Then we all forget about it an...| J. W. Mason
(I write a monthlyish opinion piece for Barron’s. This one was published there in September. My previous pieces are here.) A lingering puzzle about inflation is why the public still seems so unhappy about it, even though it has, by conventional measures, returned to normal. One explanation is that people are simply confused, or misled by the media. But … Continue reading At Barron’s: The Cost of Living and the Cost of Money| J. W. Mason
In recent days, there has been a good deal of discussion in the business press and on economics Bluesky about the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank’s “nowcast” of GDP for the first quarter of 2025. The suggestion is that the US may already be entering a recession.| J. W. Mason
This is a guest post by Michael Kinnucan. | J. W. Mason
Line goes down, and up. Last week, I wrote out a post arguing that the inflation problem is largely over, and the Fed had little to do with it. Yesterday, the new CPI numbers were released and they showed a sharp rise in inflation — a 4 percent rate over the past three months, compared with 2 percent when I wrote the piece.| J. W. Mason
I was on a virtual panel last week on industrial policy as derisking, in response to an important new paper by Daniela Gabor. For me, the conversation helped clarify why people who have broadly similar politics and analysis can have very different feelings about the Inflation Reduction Act and similar measures elsewhere. | J. W. Mason