Very few economic sub-fields have done so well in such little time as has market design. From redesigning school choice to establishing matching markets in kidney to introducing combinatorial auctions of airwaves no other field has so rapidly taken theory to practice and seen it bear immediate fruit. The rest of the economic community took notice and two market designers were awarded the Nobel Prize for their early and profound contributions. One can't help but think that more accolades are due in the next 5-15 years.
I decided to change the title from Reading to Learning because not all knowledge comes out of books, right? And I have the time to make an update now instead of waiting until the end of the year. I figure that I'll break up the big post into smaller ones.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Politics and Economics of International Energy-Sciences Po
This is a Coursera-hosted MOOC that was easily digestible and while neither rigorous nor difficult it was very useful to this novice. It helped me understand where we are and where we're heading with respect to global energy consumption and the promises and challenges of different energy sources. Prior to the course, I had a sense that the gas and oil the US is extracting via hydraulic fracking methods had immense importance geopolitically, but I wasn't clear about much else. For instance, I had no idea that there were 100 nuclear energy plants in the USA, that the difficulty of transporting natural gas is what allows Russia to leverage it's vast natural gas production against Europe, and the challenges of integrating different energy sources, particularly renewables, into an electrical grid.
