I’m planning to post some semi-regular jottings on Friday afternoons. Enjoy!
Fifty Things that made the Modern Economy hits number one… To my delight, my new BBC radio series was the number one podcast in the UK at Christmas, according to iTunes. If you’ve not encountered it, please have a listen – they’re short stories about the inventions and ideas that surround us every day, and the lessons that they can teach us. Everything from concrete to the iPhone, the bar code to the elevator. If you do subscribe then please pop over to iTunes or wherever and review it – it’ll help other people to find the podcast.
Book of the Week: I’ve been reading the new edition of John Kay’s “The Long and the Short of It” (UK) (US). It’s an outstanding and practical guide to how financial markets work and how to invest in them without getting ripped off. Kay sets out several key principles – think about your portfolio as a whole, take the efficient markets hypothesis seriously but not literally, reducing charges is the simplest way to make money – but he also explains the economics behind these principles and produces copious suggestions for putting them into play. Kay knows an enormous amount about this and his writing is clear and sharp – if sometimes demanding. Strongly recommended.
Thomas Schelling. Just before Christmas, Thomas Schelling died at the age of 95. I was fascinated by the range of his contributions to economics and to US strategic thought – and given that he was one of the fathers of nuclear arms control, it’s a particularly poignant moment. I interviewed Tom Schelling for the FT shortly after he was awarded the Nobel memorial prize, made a video about his famous “chessboard” model of segregation, and told a TED-style story about him for BBC radio. Perhaps my favourite Schelling book is Micromotives and Macrobehavior (UK) (US) – but they’re all good.
How disaster planning can help with New Year’s Resolutions: A few years ago, I discussed whether Schelling’s idea of a “commitment strategy” can help us keep New Year’s Resolutions. I suspect, however, that psychologist Gary Klein’s idea of the pre-mortem is particularly useful. Basically: after drawing up your resolution (or any other goal or project) spend some time imagining that it doesn’t work out, and exploring why that might have been. Very often, you’ll think of obvious stumbling blocks and figure out ways to avoid them.
Resource of the Week – The World Wealth and Income Database. The great Tony Atkinson died on New Year’s Day. (Here’s the FT obituary of Tony Atkinson.) Here’s the excellent resource that he helped to create, the World Wealth and Income Database – the first stop for people trying to understand in-country inequality.
Shameless plug. My new book “Messy” is available online in the US and UK or in good bookshops everywhere.