Best Economics Weblogs?

SixApart emails me:

Hi, Friends.

At the beginning of August, Six Apart will be launching Blogs.com, a site devoted to connecting readers with the top blogs on their favorite topics. Blogs.com features hand-picked blogs, Top Ten Blogs lists, daily summaries of big stories and a weekly review of the blogosphere's best. Along with featuring the favorite blogs from our team of editors and writers, we want to color the site with Top Ten Blogs lists from notable personalities. That's where you come in.

As one of the leading blogs in your genre, we'd love to feature your Top Ten Favorite Blogs for one of our guest edited top ten lists...

It would, of course, be a violation of the Code of the Desert if I did not blog about this, and ask your input into my best-ten-econ-blogs list.

Here's what NetNewsWire throws up as tops in attention in the "economics" category: the ten weblogs that I, personally, pay the most attention to:

• Mark Thoma's Economist's View http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/
• Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/
• Justin Fox's Curious Capitalist http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/
• Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/
• James Hamilton's and Menzie Chinn's Econbrowser http://www.econbrowser.com/
• Angry Bear http://angrybear.blogspot.com/
• WSJ Real Time Economics http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/
• Paul Krugman http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
• Felix Salmon's Market Movers http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/
• Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed http://paul.kedrosky.com/

How should we use judgment to alter this list as spit out automatically by NetNewsWire? What's missing? What's erroneously included? What's out of place?

Comments

[g]

Obvious answer: your top ten doesn't include you yourself, so one of the others will have to go.

[Joe]

I know,I know. Brad DeLongs Weblog is missing. Its disheartening, the amount of ignorance in the world. Suffice to say, knowledgeable people know the best economic weblogs. We don't need no stinkin list makers.

[Stephen Gordon]

How about the lack of a non-US-based blog?

I thought 'www' was an acronym for World Wide Web.

[Joe]

A case, I think, of the earth is a globular versus the earth is flat. Views differ.

[jerry]

Whuh? No Luskin?

[Paul]

No Calculated Risk? Seriously?

[Alex B]

Dani Rodrik's blog on development economics really needs to be on here (http://rodrik.typepad.com/). He's one of the best development economists around and his blog is always well written, fair and interesting.

He really needs to be on any list of the top 10 economics related blogs.

[robby]

Mankiw's blog and econlog by caplan and kling. Also, how about abnormal returns as a blog of blogs?.

[Emma Anne]

Calculated Risk needs to be way up there.

[Dr. Steven J. Balassi]

What about Robert Reich's blog:

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/

[napablogger]

Mankiw doesn't write enough to rate I think. I agree on Arnold Kling.

You need one right winger at least, if no other reason than the debate, if you don't like Luskin what about Cafe Hayek?

Also, I think Rodrick is good if you are economist, he is too hard to understand if not. So that one depends on what you are rating for, the general public or economists.

On that score, maybe Jane Galt, er Megan McArdle? She gets a lot of eyeballs and has a way of sparking debate with the way she writes. But she is not even an economist, so maybe not on that basis.

[Dr. Steven J. Balassi]

Perhaps it should be the Top 25 economic's blogs? I don't think 10 will do justice to the diversity of our subject and viewpoints.

[PeeDee]

I use Thoma, Kedrosky, Hamilton, Krugman. I also subscribe to DeLong, Naked Capitalism, Cassandra Does Tokyo, Brad Setser, William Polley; and Calculated Risk until they dropped the full RSS feeds...

I try and get minimal overlap but minimal gaps as well...

[anon]

I follow Nouriel Roubini when he's free...not a monitor subscriber. Along with others mentioned here, including this site and Calculated Risk. Brad Setser's good, too.

[Adam Smith]

I find Tyler Cowen to be utterly unreadable.

He is amongst the biggest of all the right wing hacks, only he is somewhat more eloquent than the obvious morons like Luskin. That eloquence allows him to get away with saying really stupid stuff.

EXAMPLE: His tirade about "Predatory Borrowing" was a huge embarrassment, for him as well as the NYT. It revealed him to be a clueless idealogue, guilty of the most egregious rightwingnuttery. He is unworthy of any thinking person's further time.

[plschwartz]

Musts include blogs are Calculated risk and Naked Capitalism

[AndrewBW]

Impossible to list ten I think. I like Barry Ritholtz but I don't think he's top ten so I'd knock him out and replace him with yourself. But then what to do with Calculated Risk, Brad Setser, Naked Capitalism, Wlliam Poley, Dani Rodrik? That's a Top Fifteen. Glad to see someone besides me finds Tyler Cowen intolerable though.

[ottnott]

Another vote for Calculated Risk, even though it isn't really an economics blog - call it applied economics with a narrow range of applications.

Damn good at what it does.

[SvN]

If we think of economics narrowly defined, I would downrate several blog that I consider essential reading (including this one and Krugman's) simply because so much of their excellent comment is outside of economics. (Just think of anything involving keywords "John Yoo", "Impeach" or "Why can't we have a better")

I would also severely downweight any blog that does not host comments (such as Mankiw's).

If we define economics narrowly, my vote for top is Chinn and Hamilton.

[tom s.]

Are these all written by a professional economists? I thought this was the age of the amateur. Oh well...

My votes - DeLong of course, and Rodrick.

[SvN]

for a non-american blog, what about Buiter's Maverecon?

[jim]

My portal to economic news is Dean Baker's Beat the Press (http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press) from which I link to j-bradford etc. I also have it (j-bradford etc) in my favorites list.

I also read:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/

Calculated Risk

and Brad Setser

What I like about all these blogs is that they are empirically based, literate and analytical. If these folks refer to Marx, odds are they have actually read something Marx wrote, decided for themselves what he said that was of value and discarded the rest.

[Bill C]

Top 10 is too narrow...

On fiscal policy: EconomistMom, and also TaxVox (Tax Policy Center) and the CBO Director's Blog.

Chris Blattman on development.

Also, I'd second the nominations of Maverecon, Brad Setser and Dani Rodrik.

[Blaine]

Megan Mcardle,Megan Mcardle,Megan Mcardle,Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle,Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle,Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle, Megan Mcardle,

[Amitav]

Free Exchange must be there if any MSM-hosted site makes the cut. Becker-Posner, even though they don't post often. Mankiw, Rodrik as others have mentioned.

I like WSJ Environmental Capitalism, though they may be too specialized for this.

[Andy]

No for Ritholtz and Kedrosky -- fine for trading and markets and business but no actual understanding of economics. Justin Fox is on the edge. Yes to Brad Setser, Maverecon, and Rodrik.

[jerry]

I'm completely unqualified to judge, but (seriously) shame on all of you for not including Duncan Black for his coverage of street economics.

Tyler Cowen's sense of satire is a bit too dry for my taste, oftentimes I swear he's serious. So I'd pick McArdle over Cowen. Megan or Andrea.

[surprise]

Calculated Risk, yes. Marginal Revolution, no. I'd second the nominations of naked capitalism. Too many blogs are derivative but Yves Smith's is not.

[Justin Fox]

That NetNewsWire list strikes me as deeply suspect, and not just because I'm on there and you're not. But shouldn't you just give Six Apart your own totally subjective top 10 list and ignore the Web 2.0 noise of "attention" ratings and commenters' opinions?

[But this is what NetNewsWire reports *I* pay attention to. It's my *personalized* attention ranking...]

[Craig]

Free Exchange is often written more like an Econ 101 lecture than most other econ blogs - that is why I like it so much.

I really like Megan McArdle's Asymmetrical Information, but I would say that at most 50% of what she writes is actually about economics, the rest being culture/politics/random crap.

I also read Marginal Revolution and, of course, Grasping Reality with Both Hands.

[CN]

Craig, you're being a little to generous. More then 75% of McArdle's stuff is crap. I'd vote for Nouriel Roubini.

[Justin Fox]

Scratch my previous comment. I misunderstood the NetNewsWire attention ranking. I've read up on it since, and if I understand correctly it ranks the blogs that YOU pay the most attention to. So of course you're not on the list. And it strikes me as an entirely appropriate way to get at your 10 favorites of the moment, with the caveat that you don't necessarily have to agree with the taxonomy. That is, I'd say Barry Ritholtz, Felix Salmon, Paul Kedrosky and I aren't really economics bloggers in the sense that Mark Thoma or Cowen/Tabarrok or Hamilton/Chinn are.

[peatey]

2 top economics blogs missing from that list:

Calculated Risk
Beat the Press (Dean Baker)

Kedrosky and Salmon are great *great* blogs, but they're more about investment markets than economics.

[Said Salih KAYMAKCI]

Iyigun (Good day)Blog is also missing.
http://muratiyigun.blogspot.com/
Mr. Iyigun offers Marginal Middle Eastern Perspectives on Economics, Politics & Development.

[ernie]

i'd vote for calculated risk and naked capitalism

[Rogermac]

Dean Baker's "Beat the Press" is unique in providing timely commentary on contemporary press treatment of economic issues. It deserves a much wider readership.

[jamzo]

"Kedrosky and Salmon are great *great* blogs, but they're more about
investment markets than economics"

agree

[dissent]

Two more essentials:
Naked Capitalism
China Financial Markets (http://www.piaohaoreport.sampasite.com/)

Both terrific.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Frank the sales forecaster -- I have never "assured" anyone about anything in my life.

Perhaps you might care to forward that email to me ? I have no clue as to what you are referring to . . .

[Brooks]

The two up-and-comers offering oases of reason in a desert of partisan blogs:

Capital Gains and Games (www.capitalgamesandgames.com)

EconomistMom (www.EconomistMom.com)

[Phil]

Chris Blattman's blog is tops for development.

chrisblattman.blogspot.com

[rob cyran]

Naked Capitalism certainly belongs on the list.

(although what do I know? Mr. Delong once said on this site that I penned the worst article ever to appear in the WSJ - possibly because he missed the fact that it was what I considered a rather obvious joke!)

[rob cyran]

Naked Capitalism certainly belongs on the list.

(although what do I know? Mr. Delong once said on this site that I penned the worst article ever to appear in the WSJ - possibly because he missed the fact that it was what I considered a rather obvious joke!)

[rob cyran]

Naked Capitalism certainly belongs on the list.

(although what do I know? Mr. Delong once said on this site that I penned the worst article ever to appear in the WSJ - possibly because he missed the fact that it was what I considered a rather obvious joke!)

[rob cyran]

sorry for triple post - my connection flipped out on me.

[RN]

I second Naked Capitalism and Calculated Risk, especially in light of his being one of the only ones who accurately foretold in some detail. the housing crisis

Brad Delong's shouldn't be near the list. He rarely writes anything anymore, just linking to other people who do the hard work.

Mankiw is similar but worse. Half is posts are just self-promotional.

[smc]

Here's another vote for Calculated Risk.

No one's mentioned it, but I think the blog is also an amazing underdog (underpig?) story-- that an anonymous woman whose credentials aren't some degree or professorship, but just mastery of craft could be cited by so many as one of the top ten is an achievement on her part, but no small indictment of the economics establishment. Yes, she has a great partner, but we all read her for her snarkiness, the same way we watch car races for the crashes.

[tom s.]

Oh, Stumbling and Mumbling.

http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com

[fred Thompson]

One more vote for Willem Buiter's . Alas, maverecon takes off for vacation tomorrow and will not resume blogging until August 28.

[Chris]

The Mises Institute

http://www.Mises.org

[Ken Houghton]

At least four of those--Fox, Salmon, Kedrosky, Ritholtz--are Finance blogs, not Economics ones. (WSJ is open for argument, but not much of one.)

Which is my argument against Yves Smith and, to a lesser extent, CR/Tantaville.

Hamilton/Chinn no question. AB, no question (bias admitted; it would be a clearer choice if you skipped my posts, especially the sf ones). Thoma, Krugman, MR -- no question.

If I had to pick five other econ blogs, it would be Blattman or Rodrik, Capital Gains and Games (Samwick et al.), Econospeak, Stumbling and Mumbling, and Polley, with Economist Mom on deck. Which gives you a spectrum--that's the English translation of Brooks's argumentfor CG&G and EconMom--and one to keep attention on development.

[Dominic Meagher]

Brad,

Missing is the East Asia Forum
http://eastasiaforum.wordpress.com

(Full disclosure, I'm a contributor)

[Danial]

The Economists' Forum at FT.com may not be updated regularly enough to be considered, but it is excellent.