Complexity risk

After the financial meltdown starting in 2008, calls for financial reform began. Dodd-Frank is the most obvious response to the need for better financial regulation. But does Dodd-Frank adequately fix things? Or might it also add additional layers of regulation making conducting business unnecessarily difficult and adding risk. (Related post from Sept 12)

A recent paper by Federal Financial Analytics develops the idea of "Complexity Risk". As the name suggests Dodd -Frank seems to add additional, confusing and sometimes contradictory rules.
Here's the paper: Complexity risk
And if you don't want to read the whole paper here is a column from Joe Nocera of the New York Times who comments Keep it simple

Worth reading.

An ode to economists

Prof. Dani Rodrik of Harvard writes a short insightful dressing down of economics and economists. In the piece Rodrik quotes Greg Mankiw quoting John Maynard Keynes about  economists' search for truth and lack of ideological bias. Really? I've not found that to be true.
Occupy the Classroom

Some thoughts on 2012

If you didn't see the piece in the Dec. 31 NY Times, here is a link to a compendium story of six leading economists' views of what we might see in 2012.  The varying perspectives taken by the contributors is quite interesting.
Six economists's views