Grasping Reality by Brad DeLong

Must- and Should-Reads:

• Dani Rodrik and Sharun Mukand: "Perhaps liberal democracy has little to do with the balance of power among social groups and their strategic motivations. Maybe it requires instead, the development over time of a culture of tolerance and civil liberties. Or maybe both are needed to sustain institutions that uphold property, political, and civil rights in the long term..."
• Kimberly Ann Elliott: "Bangladesh and Cambodia... are paying the full freight... 15 percent and up average tariffs.... If Vietnam were to get substantial new access to the US market, I think that could have potentially serious trade diversion implications..."
• Greg Ip: Bond Market Plunge Shows How Stability Can Breed Instability
• David Wessel: "Shelby['s]... avoids nearly all the tough issues of legitimacy... seven-member commission is [not to]... touch questions raised by the archaic ownership structure of the Fed or... having nominally private companies making public-policy decisions... ignoring the bizarre and outdated governance of the system is a missed opportunity..."
• Ashoka Mody: "The Greek government's mounting financial woes are leading it to contemplate the previously unthinkable: defaulting on a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Instead of demanding repayment and further austerity, the IMF should recognize its responsibility for the country's predicament and forgive much of the debt..."
• Akhil Reed Amar: "The most important limit, the one we fought the Revolutionary War for, is that the people doing this to you are the people you elect...."
• Evan Soltas: Student Loans and the Next Crisis
• Must-Read: Marshall Steinbaum: What explains rising wealth inequality?
• Must-Read: Andrew Jalil and Gisela Rua: Inflation Expectations and Recovery from the Depression in 1933
• Must-Read: Lawrence Summers (2011): A Conversation on New Economic Thinking
• Must-Must-Read: Matthew Yglesias: "Brookings did a symposium

Over at Equitable Growth--The Equitablog

• : Choose Your Heterodoxy: Farmer vs. Krugman
• Nick Bunker: Looking for the roots of total factor productivity growth

Plus:

• Things to Read on the Evening of May 13, 2015

And Over Here: