Thursday 5 April 2012

Why are more bloggers needed?

Previously I asked are More bloggers needed? I argued we need more New Zealand based econ blogs. In the comments to this posting David Friedman wrote,
Why assume that a blogosphere is defined by a realspace nation? Shouldn't NZ economists consider themselves part of the same blogosphere as U.S. economists?
and Tim Worstall writes at his blog,
Hmm.

That the economics blogosphere is as close to a global free market* as we can get shows the need for more local production.

Hmm….
Both these comments make sensible points but I would argue that New Zealand economics blogs are still useful for two reasons:
  1. Obviously as the New Zealand economics blogoshee grows so does the world blogosphere. On general economic topics you can take advantage of an enlarged worldwide blogosphere.
  2. To a large degree economic policy is country specific and thus if you want discussion of a given country’s economic policy you need a reasonable number of blogs to maintain ongoing conversations. People in Europe or the U.S., for example, have no interest in New Zealand’s economic issues and thus are unlikely to become involved in discussion of such problems. Thus for serious discussion of New Zealand policy issues you need as large as possible New Zealand econ blogosphere.
Also I do wonder just how nationalistic is blog reading? Do national boundaries matter for the blogs we read? How many of your regular reads are outside of New Zealand? Just what does determine the blogs we read?

1 comment:

Tim Worstall said...

"How many of your regular reads are outside of New Zealand?"

Oooh, Oooh, I know that one Professor! Hand in the air, please, pick me to answer the question!

Almost all of them because there aren't many economics blogs in New Zealand.

Which is, I believe, where we came in......

:-)