Issue 26, Spring 2004

William A. McEachern, Editor

Odds and Ends

As part of the debate on whether great players make great coaches and whether great economists make great teachers (see "The Natural," in the Fall 2000 issue of The Teaching Economist), consider the backgrounds of coaches in the National Football League. Of the 32 head coaches this past season, only eight played in the NFL for at least one season, and only three of those played regularly. None made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player. In the recent Superbowl, neither the winning nor the losing coach ever wore an NFL uniform.

Each Thursday the New York Time publishes the "Economic Scene," written by one of four alternating columnists: Alan Krueger, of Princeton; Hal Varian, of Berkeley; Jeff Madrick, Editor of Challenge Magazine, and economics writer Virginia Postrel. An archive of Krueger's contributions can be found at http://www.irs.princeton.edu/krueger/EconomicScene.html, Varian's at http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/people/hal/articles.html, and Postrel's at http://www.dynamist.com/articles-speeches/nyt/index.html. (I found no archive for Madrick.) Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, writes a syndicated column two or three times a week, which can be found at http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/archive.shtml. Many of his columns point to shortcomings of government regulations. Robert Samuelson has been writing a weekly column for the Washington Post since 1977 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/columns/samuelsonrobert/). He also writes weekly for Newsweek, though online access to the Newsweek columns is limited. Samuelson focuses on the economy, with a market orientation. Paul Krugman of Princeton writes twice weekly in the New York Times, at http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/ For some months he has been critical of Bush Administration policies, with columns such as "The Awful Truth," "Democracy at Risk," and "Our So-Called Boom."

In the College Fed Challenge, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, students play the role of monetary policymakers in this annual competition by analyzing current economic conditions and recommending an appropriate monetary policy. Teams of three to five undergraduates make a 20-minute presentation and respond to questions for 15 minutes. The 2003 winning team was from Barnard/Columbia. For more details, go to http://www.ny.frb.org/education/fedchallenge_college.html.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco offers a University Symposium to help undergraduates understand the functions of the Federal Reserve System. Materials include student handouts, FOMC simulation assignments, and background materials. For example, "The professor will divide the class into seven groups that will act as research teams of economists." The Fed Chairman is supported by one of those teams, Fed Governors get three teams, and FRB Presidents get three teams. For details and supporting materials, go to http://www.frbsf.org/education/teachers/symposium/index.html.

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