As economists arrive in Denver, Colorado this week to participate in the annual meeting of the American Economics Association, they will be asked to consider an economist’s code of ethics. This effort is discussed in the following New York Times article by Sewell Chan, and highlights the work of Triple Crisis blogger Gerald Epstein as well as a new book by George F. DeMartino, who will author a guest blog on this subject in 2011.

Excerpt from “Academic Economists to Consider Ethics Code,” by Sewell Chan:

“When the Stanford business professor Darrell Duffie co-wrote a book on how to overhaul Wall Street regulations, he did not mention that he sits on the board of Moody’s, the credit rating agency.

As a commentator on the economy, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who teaches in the business school at the University of California, Berkeley, does not usually say that she is a director of Morgan Stanley.

And the faculty Web page of Richard H. Clarida, a Columbia professor who was a Treasury official under President George W. Bush, omits that he is an executive vice president at Pimco, the giant bond fund manager.

Academic economists, particularly those active in policy debates in Washington and Wall Street, are facing greater scrutiny of their outside activities these days. Faced with a run of criticism, including a popular movie, leaders of the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, founded in 1885, are considering a step that most other professions took a long time ago — adopting a code of ethical standards.”

Read the full article at the New York Times.

As economists arrive in Denver, Colorado this week to participate in the annual meeting of the American Economics Association, they will be asked to consider an economist’s code of ethics. This effort is discussed in the following New York Times article by Sewell Chan, and highlights the work of Triple Crisis blogger Gerald Epstein as well as a new book by George F. DeMartino, who will author a guest blog on this subject in 2011.

Excerpt from “Academic Economists to Consider Ethics Code,” by Sewell Chan:

“When the Stanford business professor Darrell Duffie co-wrote a book on how to overhaul Wall Street regulations, he did not mention that he sits on the board of Moody’s, the credit rating agency.

As a commentator on the economy, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who teaches in the business school at the University of California, Berkeley, does not usually say that she is a director of Morgan Stanley.

And the faculty Web page of Richard H. Clarida, a Columbia professor who was a Treasury official under President George W. Bush, omits that he is an executive vice president at Pimco, the giant bond fund manager.

Academic economists, particularly those active in policy debates in Washington and Wall Street, are facing greater scrutiny of their outside activities these days. Faced with a run of criticism, including a popular movie, leaders of the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, founded in 1885, are considering a step that most other professions took a long time ago — adopting a code of ethical standards.”

Read the full article at the New York Times.

Mark Blyth

One of the downsides of being a triple-crisis blogger is that you are always on the lookout for crises. It’s not a role I particularly enjoy, but it is what it is. So as the markets wind down for the year and the illusion of calm falls over us like a blanket of denial (yes, keep positive folks), I thought I’d write a piece about what I see as, perhaps, the emerging story of 2011. Its one that comes from reading the New York Times and the Financial Times yesterday morning, while thinking about two pieces I have read this year: one by Andy Haldane back in July and one by John Cassidy in late November.

The story in both papers, in case you missed it, was about how for many Wall Street and City of London bankers, the traditional Christmas bonus dished out this year would, for some, contain lots of zeros, and not much else. Its not so much that profits are down (they are), so the story went, but because the perception of ‘the bonus culture’ as creating excessive risk taking has led to higher base salaries and escrow-type arrangements at many US banks, while in the UK and Europe many mid-tier bankers are about to be eliminated from the bonus pool altogether, with talented juniors and senior executives being protected.

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