Stanford Professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow John B. Taylor has started up a blog, Economics One. His short Hoover Press book on the monetary origins of the financial crisis, Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis, was a surprise intellectual intervention in analysis of the crisis and an instant mini-best-seller, as this kind of book goes. I don't pretend to any knowledge of monetary economics, but I am already a fan of Professor Taylor's blog (he makes interesting comments in a new posting, by the way, on his recent co-authored piece in the WSJ on the effect (non) of the stimulus).

(Tangentially, the director of the Hoover Institution remarked at a meeting on something different I was at yesterday that, just from a pure publishing standpoint, the speed with which Hoover Press was able to produce a very short, elegantly written essay, put it in a handsome hardback format with good design, high quality paper stock, great graphics, and get it out via Amazon backed up by Hoover Press directly to readers has altered how the institution thinks about in-house production. I wonder whether other think tanks or university presses will consider this model? Getting Off Track has sold something like 20,000 copies, and I would guess 80% have been via Amazon. I mean, you have to start with a great book, and let it go viral - but reducing the production cycle from over a year to a few weeks, with readers knowing they can just hit the one-click button and get two day Amazon Prime delivery ...)