Smile Like You Mean It

Thanks to Eoin McL for giving me a new insight into what we consider to be non-cognitive ability (or non-cognitive skill). I've discussed this concept before in relation to labour market earnings, graduate education, life expectancy and development of cognitive skill.

Eoin pointed me towards the author Samuel Smiles, who according to Wikipedia, was editor of the Leeds Times from 1838-1845. In this role, he advocated radical causes ranging from women's suffrage to free trade to parliamentary reform. Wikipedia reports that in the 1850s he seems to have completely given up on parliamentary reform and other structural changes as a means of social advance. For the rest of his career, he advocated individual self improvement. This is the link to what we think of now as non-cognitive skills. Smiles is best known as the writer of what can be considered as self-help books, some of which are listed below:

Self-Help (with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance), London, 1859
Character, London, 1871
Thrift, London, 1875
Duty, London, 1880
Life and Labour, London 1887

I'm currently reading the first book; electronic copies of this and many others are available here on the Project Gutenberg website. The Smilesian view on the importance of education is provided here by James Stansfield.

Its Not Me, Its You: the Crisis

A couple of interesting NBER papers have recently offered interesting historical perspectives on the financial crisis. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth S Rogoff have written "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises". These authors state that a recent example of the "this time is different" syndrome is the false belief that domestic debt is a novel feature of the modern financial landscape. Michael David Bordo offers a slightly different perspective in "An Historical Perspective on the Crisis of 2007-2008". He suggests that the current crisis has many similarities to those of the past but also some important modern twists.

History and the Financial Crisis

With many of us turning our attention to the conference organised by UCD School of Economics this afternoon, I thought the following paper might be of interest. Its by Brad de Long from Berkeley, and it delves into a lot of history related to the current crisis. Available here.