Economics briefs Six big ideas

Six big economic ideas
A collection of briefs on the discipline’s seminal papers
1
Published since September 1843
to take part in “a severe contest between 
intelligence, which presses forward, and 
an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing 
our progress.”
Editorial office:
25 St James’s Street
London SW1 1HG
Tel: [phone]
Illustration
Robert Samuel Hanson
 
Information asymmetry
4 Secrets and agents
 
George Akerlof’s 1970 paper,
“The Market for Lemons”, is a
foundation stone of information
economics. The first in our series
on seminal economic ideas
 
 
Financial stability
6 Minsky’s moment
The second article in our series
on seminal economic ideas looks at
Hyman Minsky’s hypothesis that
booms sow the seeds of busts
 
 
Tariffs and wages
8 An inconvenient iota of truth
The third in our series looks at the
Stolper-Samuelson theorem
 
 
Fiscal multipliers
10 Where does the buck stop?
Fiscal stimulus, an idea
championed by John Maynard
Keynes, has gone in and out of
fashion
 
Game theory
12 Prison breakthrough
The fifth of our series on seminal
economic ideas looks at the Nash
equilibrium
 
 
 
The Mundell-Fleming trilemma
14 Two out of three ain’t bad
A fixed exchange rate, monetary
autonomy and the free flow
of capital are incompatible,
according to the last in our series
of big economic ideas

---

20
16