The original Phillips Curve

The Phillips Curve is a justly famous idea in macroeconomics, showing the trade-off between unemployment and inflation.
A.W.H. Phillips was an engineer by training and constructed this hydraulic model of the economy to illustrate his ideas.


A tip of the hat to Mark Wynne for providing this.

Inflation once again

I don't know much about macroeconomics but I was brought up to believe that inflation is a bad thing. However given the rapid deflation that the Irish economy is experiencing a little inflation might be something to be celebrated at this stage. This news broadcast from an unnamed Mediterranean country shows us how:

Misery Index

The good people at Status Ireland have kindly added the "The Misery Index", the sum of the inflation rate & unemployment rate (an idea due to Okun). The recent fall is presumably due to inflation.

Inflation: bah humbug

These are the Google trends for inflation & unemployment. There is a curious dip for inflation at the end of each year. I wonder is this because at Christmas people are spending like crazy & don't want to be bothered about tiresome stuff like inflation.

Let's Call a Grade a Grade

I mentioned a story to some people yesterday about the argument over grade inflation in Irish third-level institutions.

The story is on the Irish Times website and is called: "Are standards in our third-level colleges slipping?"

Read the 'Yes' and 'No' sides to the argument here.