(Roughly) Daily

Economists have a name for this

There are plenty of economics terms regular people would find not only very interesting, but useful for thinking about policy. Sadly, the most commonly used econ words tend to be the ones with the vaguest meanings — “rational,” “equilibrium” and “efficient.” Instead, here are some of my suggestions:

• Endogeneity

Everyone knows that correlation doesn’t equal causation, but somehow people seem to forget. Endogeneity is a word that can help you remember. Something is endogenous when you don’t know whether it’s a cause or an effect (or both). For example, lots of people note that people who go to college tend to make more money. But how much of this is because college boosts earning power, and how much is because smarter, harder-working, better-connected people tend to go to college in the first place? It’s endogenous. The media is full of stories about how which kind of people stay married, or what diet is associated with better health. Whenever you see these stories, you should ask “What about endogeneity?”…

Noah Smith suggest four other useful concepts in “5 Economics Terms We All Should Use.”

* John Maynard Keynes

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As we get dismal, we might send fancy birthday greetings to Sir Frederick Henry Royce; he was born on this date in 1863.  An engineer and car designer, he founded (with Charles Rolls and Claude Johnson) the Rolls-Royce company, which introduced the first successful luxury cars in the emerging automotive industry.

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