NYT - Economy

Bloomberg View

Calculated Risk

  • !Schedule for Week of Aug 20, 2017
    The key economic reports this week are New and Existing Home sales for July.Fed Chair Janet Yellen will speak at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday.----- Monday, Aug 21st -----8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for July. Thi…
    - 38 mins ago 19 Aug 17, 12:09pm -
  • !Oil Rigs "Rigs counts are now off the peak"
    A few comments from Steven Kopits of Princeton Energy Advisors LLC on Aug 18, 2017:• Rigs counts are now off the peak• Total US oil rigs were down 5 to 763• Horizontal oil rigs were down 4 at 650...• Expect rigs counts to roll off for the nex…
    - 16 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 9:03pm -
  • !Sacramento Housing in July: Sales up Slightly YoY, Active Inventory down 18% YoY
    During the recession, I started following the Sacramento market to look for changes in the mix of houses sold (equity, REOs, and short sales). For several years, not much changed. But in 2012 and 2013, we saw some significant changes with a dramati…
    - 18 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 6:57pm -
  • !Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in July
    From housing economist Tom Lawler:Based on publicly-available local realtor/MLS reports from across the country released through today, I project that US existing home sales as estimated by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adj…
    - 21 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 3:57pm -
  • !BLS: Unemployment Rates Unchanged in 46 states in July, Two States at New Series Lows
    From the BLS: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment SummaryUnemployment rates were higher in July in 3 states, lower in 1 state, and stable in 46 states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Twenty…
    - 23 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 2:13pm -

The Undercover Economist

  • Challenge is all too easily ducked by today’s knowledge workers
    “The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects, too, are perhaps always the same . . . generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.” This anxiet…
    - 1 day ago 18 Aug 17, 12:42pm -
  • Remembering the holocaust

    - 2 days ago 17 Aug 17, 12:29pm -
  • Think like a supermodel if you want to win from the gig economy
    Are we misunderstanding the endgame of the annoyingly named “gig economy”? At the behest of the UK government, Matthew Taylor’s review of modern working practices was published this week. The title could easily have graced a report from the 193…
    - 8 days ago 11 Aug 17, 12:21pm -
  • Fantasy gaming can be better than reality
    “The only thing that can make me happy is computer games!” So declares my five-year-old son, tears streaming down his cheeks, with a vehement desperation that merely encourages me to ration this potent experience. I don’t recall my own parents…
    - 15 days ago 4 Aug 17, 12:06pm -
  • We are still waiting for the robot revolution
    The cash machine turned 50 this week — old enough, I think, to teach us a few lessons about the dawning of a new machine age. It seems a good advertisement for practical innovation that makes life a little easier. But with its very name a promise t…
    - 22 days ago 28 Jul 17, 1:09pm -

Marginal Revolution

  • !Why is a solar eclipse special?
    I recall the eclipse in 1973.  As a kid, I made some kind of cardboard box, so I could view the sun through a little squinting hole.  The entire event was a big disappointment, even given the fact that, at the time, I had hardly seen anything befor…
    - 9 hours ago 19 Aug 17, 4:16am -
  • !Forget the Past: Statues Represent Who We Want To Be
    That is the excellent title they gave to my latest Bloomberg column.  The piece starts by offering a very simple theory of what statues are for, and then I shift to the perspective of a foreigner.  Here is one bit: Or consider the debates in Macedo…
    - 16 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 8:26pm -
  • !Friday assorted links
    1. Fifty years from now this post is about rhetoric not policy.  Keep this post in mind the next time you try to predict the future. 2. How the desire to get on playlists is changing music. 3. The timeline of the far future. 4. Justin Wolfers on mis…
    - 20 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 4:31pm -
  • !*Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Influence*
    That is the new and interesting book by Rachel Sherman, consisting primarily of field work and interviews with the very well-off.  Here is one bit: …they described their desires and needs as basic and their spending as disciplined and family-orien…
    - 22 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 2:26pm -
  • Markets in everything?
    I cannot tell whether this tale should count as confirmed: As awful as that may sound, a number of religious scholars are offering themselves up for one-night stands with divorced Muslim women trying to save their marriages under a disputable Islamic…
    - 1 day ago 18 Aug 17, 11:10am -

Beat The Press

  • Using Protectionism to Try to Keep China Down
    There is a recurring theme in public discussions, seemingly embraced by everyone from Steve Bannon to columnists at the New York Times and Washington Post, that we should use protectionist measures to try to keep China from overtaking the U.S. as the…
    - 1 day ago 18 Aug 17, 8:15am -
  • An Explanation for Weak Wage Growth That Fails the Simple Logic Test
    When workers are doing badly you can always count on a large number of economists to come forward with ways to argue it really ain't so. For example, we have heard endless stories about how our price indices hugely overstate inflation — we're actua…
    - 2 days ago 17 Aug 17, 1:20pm -
  • Currency Rules In NAFTA Would not Just Be Symbolic
    In an article on the effort to renegotiate the terms of NAFTA, the NYT noted the Trump administration's plan to put in language that would prohibit currency management. (The article uses the term "manipulation," which implies an action being done in…
    - 2 days ago 17 Aug 17, 4:24am -
  • Case of Sinclair Broadcasting: The Free Market and Having the Government Give Money to Rich People Are Not the Same Thing
    The NYT had a piece discussing Sinclair Broadcasting's plans for expansion and the apparent green light coming from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As the piece explains, the FCC is now headed by Ajit V. Pai. Mr. Pai apparently met with…
    - 4 days ago 15 Aug 17, 7:07pm -
  • Lies for Microsoft and Pfizer on the NYT's Opinion Page
    When you're rich and powerful in the United States you get to lie freely to advance your position in public debate, including the opinion page of The New York Times. This is why the paper ran an anti-free trade diatribe against China, insisting that…
    - 4 days ago 15 Aug 17, 7:02am -

Liberty Street Economics

Freakonomics

  • !How to Become Great at Just About Anything (Rebroadcast)
    Season 6, Episode 50 This week on Freakonomics Radio: what if the thing we call ‘talent’ is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson, who…
    - 22 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 3:02pm -
  • Bad Medicine, Part 1: The Story of 98.6 (Rebroadcast)
    We tend to think of medicine as a science, but for most of human history it has been scientific-ish at best. In the first episode of a three-part series, we look at the grotesque mistakes produced by centuries of trial-and-error, and ask whether the…
    - 2 days ago 17 Aug 17, 3:00am -
  • Who Needs Handwriting? (Rebroadcast)
    Season 6, Episode 49 This week on Freakonomics Radio: the digital age is making pen and paper seem obsolete. But what are we giving up if we give up on handwriting? A famous economics essay features a pencil (yes, a pencil) arguing that “not a si…
    - 9 days ago 10 Aug 17, 10:00pm -
  • What Are You Waiting For? (Rebroadcast)
    Standing in line represents a particularly sloppy — and frustrating — way for supply and demand to meet. Why haven't we found a better way to get what we want? Is it possible that we secretly enjoy waiting in line? And might it even be (gulp) goo…
    - 9 days ago 10 Aug 17, 3:00am -
  • Urinetown: TMSIDK Episode 26
    Tell Me Something I Don't Know is on the weird side of the tracks in Philadelphia with everything you've ever wanted to know about graffiti, cockroaches, tattoos, pee, and more. James Altucher (host of The James Altucher Show) is our special guest co…
    - 13 days ago 7 Aug 17, 12:00am -

Conversable Economist

  • !Blockchain: New Frontiers
    Blockchain is a technology that offers reliable by decentralized record-keeping. The best-known applications of "blockchain" technology are still the alternative currencies, of which Bitcoin remains most prominent. But it looks more and more as if th…
    - 24 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 1:00pm -
  • Autonomous Cars: Altering One in Nine Jobs
    It seems clear that driverless vehicles are coming, although the timeline for their arrival remains unclear. David Beede, Regina Powers and Cassandra Ingram of the Economics and Statistics Administration at the US Department of Commerce look at one…
    - 3 days ago 16 Aug 17, 1:00pm -
  • Adam Smith: The Plight of the Impartial Spectator in Times of Faction
    Adam Smith's first great book, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, relies heavily in places on the idea of an "impartial spectator." Smith's notion is that our beliefs about morality are closely related to our notion of how a hypothetical "impartial spec…
    - 4 days ago 15 Aug 17, 1:00pm -
  • Misallocation and Productivity: International Perspective
    In pretty much every industry in pretty much every country, the firms exhibit a range of productivity: that is, some well-run and efficient firms produce more output given their levels of labor and capital, while others produce less. What ought to ha…
    - 5 days ago 14 Aug 17, 1:00pm -
  • NAFTA in a Multipolar World Economy
    Discussions of globalization often seem rooted in an assumption that the main choices, either for the US or for other countries, are either nationalism or global. But there is another possibility, which is that the world economy evolves to a "multipo…
    - 8 days ago 11 Aug 17, 1:00pm -

The Economist

VOX - CEPR's Policy Portal

  • !Smaller firms suffer far more from organised, mafia-style crime
    Whether organised crime undermines productivity has been studied extensively in broad terms, but not at the firm level. This column uses extensive firm-level data from across Italy to suggest that this is firmly the case, both through direct and indi…
    - 13 hours ago 19 Aug 17, 12:00am -
  • Online exports and the wage gap
    The reduction in the cost of exporting offered by international transactions over the internet helps small firms in developing countries reach consumers all over the world. This column argues that this bias in favour of small firms has an impact on l…
    - 2 days ago 18 Aug 17, 12:00am -
  • The LiTS survey: A decade of measuring transition
    Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, post-communist countries have experienced an overhaul of their economic and political institutions. This column highlights five core messages from the most recent Life in Transition Survey, which is conduct…
    - 3 days ago 17 Aug 17, 12:00am -
  • Missing growth
    Slowing growth of total factor productivity has led some to suggest that the world is running out of ideas for innovation. This column suggests that the way output is measured is vital to assessing this, and quantifies the role of imputation in outpu…
    - 4 days ago 16 Aug 17, 12:00am -
  • Why Trump’s protectionist trade agenda will fail
    Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has been an increasingly vocal proponent of protectionist measures. This column presents five reasons why he is unlikely to resort to full-blown protectionism: political motivations, WTO membership, the…
    - 5 days ago 15 Aug 17, 12:00am -

EconLog

  • !Worstall on Robots and Jobs, by David Henderson
    Tim Worstall, referring to my article that I posted on yesterday, makes an important point I should have made. Here are two highlights:The Keynes point is here in Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. What Henderson says about it is entirely…
    - 1 hour ago 19 Aug 17, 2:16pm -
  • !Henderson on Robots, Jobs, and Productivity, by David Henderson
    If you're still worried that robots will be too human-like, consider what happened to men's jobs when women, who not only are human-like but also are actual humans, increasingly entered the labor force. Men's jobs didn't decline; they increased. In 1…
    - 17 hours ago 18 Aug 17, 7:25pm -
  • Fifty years ago, by Scott Sumner
    Fifty years ago, the Red Guards were rampaging through the streets of Beijing. Chairman Mao issued weird, over-the-top statements about the evils of American capitalism. Free markets were seen as exploitation, as a sort of winner-take-all. Meanwhil…
    - 2 days ago 17 Aug 17, 8:52pm -
  • Hummel on the Curse of Cash, by David Henderson
    In "Anti-Paper Prophet: Comments on The Curse of Cash." Jeff Hummel has written an excellent response to Ken Rogoff's response to Hummel's review of his book The Curse of Cash. The whole thing is well worth reading. Here are the parts I found most st…
    - 2 days ago 17 Aug 17, 2:57am -
  • Can the left and the right agree on a monetary reform plan?, by Scott Sumner
    In recent years, the political situation in the US has become highly polarized. But I'm not convinced that this necessarily prevents the two sides from coming together on monetary policy. Consider:1. The idea of NGDP targeting has considerable (a…
    - 3 days ago 16 Aug 17, 7:33am -

Paul Krugman

Economists View

  • Links for 08-18-17
    Trump’s CEOs resigned. His staff should do the same. - Larry Summers Alfred Crosby Deserves a Nobel Prize in Economics - Douglas Campbell Fed Confronts New Reality: Low Inflation and Low Unemployment - NYTimes FOMC Minutes: Balance Sheet Normalizat…
    - 1 day ago 18 Aug 17, 9:16am -
  • Paul Krugman: Trump Makes Caligula Look Pretty Good
    "The Worst President Ever™": Trump Makes Caligula Look Pretty Good, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: Even before the media obsession with Hillary Clinton’s email server put The Worst President Ever™ in the White House, historians were comparing Donal…
    - 1 day ago 18 Aug 17, 9:16am -
  • Links for 08-16-17
    Why don’t all CEOs quit Trump’s advisory councils? - Larry Summers Nearly All US Trade Deals Were Negotiated by Republicans - PIIE How Donald Trump Is Driving Up Health Insurance Premiums - NYTimes Adam Smith: The Impartial Spectator in Times...
    - 3 days ago 16 Aug 17, 5:14pm -
  • Fed Watch: Retail Sales, Dudley, Wages
    Tim Duy: Retail Sales, Dudley, Wages, by Tim Duy: Some quick thoughts for the day. First, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley gave an extended interview to the Associate Press. Definitely worth the time to read. Some highlights: 1.)...
    - 4 days ago 15 Aug 17, 7:03pm -
  • Fed Shouldn't View Productivity as an Exogenous Factor
    Tim Duy: Fed Shouldn't View Productivity as an Exogenous Factor: The Federal Reserve has an opportunity to test a hypothesis critical to the health of the U.S. economy: Can persistently loose monetary policy boost the pace of productivity growth? Sad…
    - 4 days ago 15 Aug 17, 7:03pm -

Naked Capitalism