NYT - Economy

Bloomberg View

Calculated Risk

  • !Chicago Fed "Index points to a moderation in economic growth in March"
    From the Chicago Fed: Index points to a moderation in economic growth in MarchLed by slower growth in production- and employment-related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) declined to +0.10 in March from +0.98 in February. Th…
    - 31 mins ago 23 Apr 18, 12:36pm -
  • !Monday: Existing Home Sales
    Weekend:• Schedule for Week of Apr 22, 2018Monday:• At 8:30 AM ET, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for March. This is a composite index of other data.• At 10:00 AM, Existing Home Sales for March from the National Association of Realtors (N…
    - 13 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 12:34am -
  • !Goldman: "Moving Beyond Full Employment"
    A few brief excerpts from a note by Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle: ... Are we really at full employment? Won’t job growth naturally slow down soon? Why is wage growth so much lower than in previous expansions? ...We now see the labor market…
    - 21 hours ago 22 Apr 18, 3:53pm -
  • Schedule for Week of Apr 22, 2018
    The key economic reports this week are the advance estimate of Q1 GDP, March new and existing home sales, and Case-Shiller house prices.----- Monday, Apr 23rd -----8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for March. This is a composite index…
    - 2 days ago 21 Apr 18, 12:11pm -
  • Oil Rigs "Middling rig adds"
    A few comments from Steven Kopits of Princeton Energy Advisors LLC on Apr 20, 2018:• Total US oil rigs were up, +5 to 820• Horizontal oil rigs were up,+6 at 723...• Almost all the action was back in the Permian, +9 horizontal oil rigs• The br…
    - 3 days ago 20 Apr 18, 9:41pm -

The Undercover Economist

  • !Books to make you feel better about the world
    I recently reviewed the excellent Factfulness (UK) (US) by the late Hans Rosling, his son Ola and his daughter-in-law Anna. It’s an absolutely terrific, inspiring, and wise book, which among many other things is likely to make you feel better ab…
    - 2 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 10:58am -
  • Even in Trump’s White House, chaos has its limits
    Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 23 March 2018. “So many people have been leaving the White House. It’s actually been really exciting and invigorating,” said Donald Trump earlier this month. “I like turnover. I like c…
    - 3 days ago 20 Apr 18, 11:02am -
  • The past, present and future of banking
    (Business seals; Rishengchang Museum.) Not long ago I was fortunate enough to visit the Rishengchang in Pingyao – which I tentatively understand to be the oldest “draft” bank in China, allowing merchants to send money across the nation. Pingy…
    - 7 days ago 16 Apr 18, 3:55pm -
  • Stephen Hawking’s restless scientific curiosity pulled us all in
    A few months ago, my teenage daughter and I went to see a lecture by Stephen Hawking at Oxford’s Mathematical Institute. The event had been postponed once because he was unwell; I worried that his body might finally give out, albeit five decades la…
    - 10 days ago 13 Apr 18, 10:59am -
  • In praise of Factfulness
    “I use normal statistics that are compiled by the World Bank and the United Nations. This is not controversial. These facts are not up for discussion. I am right and you are wrong.” That was Hans Rosling, delivering a celebrated smackdown  on Da…
    - 12 days ago 11 Apr 18, 10:57am -

Marginal Revolution

  • !Defensive Gun Use and the Difficult Statistics of Rare Events
    In the mid-1990s, Kleck and Gertz (1995) estimated that in a typical year about 1.3% of US adults used a gun for self-defense against another person. Kleck and Gertz’s estimate, which came from a survey of nearly 5000 people, implied that there wer…
    - 2 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 11:25am -
  • !Superstars in the NBA playoffs, and the heightening of income inequality
    Perhaps you have noticed that the sixth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans swept the third-seeded Portland Trail Blazers in four games straight.  A month or two ago, it was not entirely obvious that the Pelicans would make the playoffs at all.  And all 2…
    - 7 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 5:55am -
  • !Economists don’t like admitting to publishing in lower-quality outlets
    Nice empirical confirmation of something I've repeatedly heard said by Economists. It goes with their obsessive focus on "home runs". Although, given that Jl. Ec. Psych has an impact factor of 1.2, the authors should probably leave it off their CVs.…
    - 8 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 4:46am -
  • !What should I ask Elisa New?
    I will be doing a Conversation with her, here is part of her Wikipedia entry: Elisa New…is a Professor of English at Harvard University. She holds a B.A. from Brandeis University (1980), as well as a M.A. and a Ph.D from Columbia University (1982…
    - 18 hours ago 22 Apr 18, 6:42pm -
  • !Sunday assorted links

    - 21 hours ago 22 Apr 18, 4:11pm -

Beat The Press

  • !Privatization Isn't Necessarily Done to Save Money
    The NYT had a very good article on the deterioration of the quality of public sector jobs over the last two decades. The piece notes the decline in pay and benefits for teachers, prison guards, and a wide variety of other public sector workers. As a…
    - 9 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 4:08am -
  • Message to NYT Times: Growth in Our Trading Partners Is Good for the United States
    The NYT ran a piece about a revised trade pact between the European Union and Mexico with the headline, "In a message to Trump, Europe and Mexico announce trade pact." The piece tells readers:"...it sends a message to Mr. Trump that some of America…
    - 1 day ago 22 Apr 18, 7:24am -
  • If the Debt Mongers Were Serious: The Cost of Patent and Copyright Monopolies
    The papers are full of pieces deploring the debt the US government is accumulating under the Trump administration. However, we can know that these people are not serious because they never take into account the implicit debt created by the granting o…
    - 4 days ago 19 Apr 18, 10:58pm -
  • Finance 202 Meets Economics 101
    The Washington Post decided to give us "Finance 202" to tell us that tax cuts at this point in the business cycle are a bad idea. The gist of the argument is that the economy is approaching full employment, so there is little room left for further st…
    - 4 days ago 19 Apr 18, 1:22am -
  • NYT Ignores Lower U.S. Food Prices as Benefit from Trump Trade War
    The NYT had yet another piece about the potential political fallout if China retaliates for Trump's tariffs by imposing tariffs of its own on US agricultural exports. It noted that farmers in some states could turn against the Republicans, highlight…
    - 5 days ago 18 Apr 18, 11:09pm -

Paul Krugman

Economists View

  • Links
    Trump’s Advisors Recognize That His China Tariff Strategy Calls for… What Might You Call It? A “Trans-Pacific Partnership”, Perhaps? - Equitable Growth Equilibrium Selection, Observability and Backward-stable Solutions - Brad DeLong On Equili…
    - 4 days ago 19 Apr 18, 7:53pm -
  • Links for 04-10-18
    The Fallacy of the Free Market - James Kwak Trump’s Trade Confusion - Joseph E. Stiglitz Capital in Russia - Thomas Piketty What’s Been Stopping the Left? - Dani Rodrik Opinion | Obamacare’s Very Stable Genius - Paul Krugman Supporting...
    - 13 days ago 10 Apr 18, 5:02pm -

Naked Capitalism

Liberty Street Economics

  • Just Released: The New York Fed Staff Forecast—April 2018
    Today, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is hosting the spring meeting of its Economic Advisory Panel (EAP). As has become the custom at this meeting, the New York Fed’s Research staff is presenting its forecast for U.S. growth, inflation, and t…
    - 3 days ago 20 Apr 18, 2:30pm -
  • Will New Steel Tariffs Protect U.S. Jobs?
    President Trump announced a new tariff of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports on March 8, 2018. One objective of these tariffs is to protect jobs in the U.S. steel industry. They were introduced under a rarely used 1962 Ac…
    - 4 days ago 19 Apr 18, 2:00pm -
  • Just Released: Is Housing a Good Investment? Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit
    Home price growth expectations remained stable relative to last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s 2018 SCE Housing Survey. Respondents expect mortgage rates to rise over the next year, and perhaps as a result, the share of…
    - 5 days ago 18 Apr 18, 3:00pm -
  • Is Stigma Attached to the European Central Bank’s Marginal Lending Facility?
    The European Central Bank (ECB)’s marginal lending facility has been used by banks to borrow funds both in normal times and during the crisis that started in 2007. In this post, we argue that how a central bank communicates the purpose of a facilit…
    - 7 days ago 16 Apr 18, 11:00am -
  • How Will the New Tax Law Affect Homeowners in High Tax States? It Depends
    The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) introduces significant changes to the federal income tax code for individuals and businesses. Several provisions of the new tax law are particularly significant for the owner-occupied housing market. In this b…
    - 12 days ago 11 Apr 18, 11:00am -

Freakonomics

  • Should We Really Behave Like Economists Say We Do? (Rebroadcast)
    Season 7, Episode 12  You have perhaps come across the phrase homo economicus, which describes a model for human behavior as seen through the lens of economics. In this hour, you’ll hear Freakonomics Radio producer Greg Rosalsky embark on a long a…
    - 23 Nov 17, 11:00pm -
  • Is America Ready for a “No-Lose Lottery”? (Update)
    Most people don’t enjoy the simple, boring act of putting money in a savings account. But we do love to play the lottery. So what if you combine the two, creating a new kind of savings account with a lottery payout? The post Is America Ready for a…
    - 23 Nov 17, 4:00am -
  • An Astronaut, a Catalan, and Two Linguists Walk Into a Bar…: TMSIDK Episode 36
    Why New York has skinny skyscrapers, how to weaponize water, and what astronauts talk about in space. John McWhorter is co-host; Bari Weiss is live fact-checker.The post An Astronaut, a Catalan, and Two Linguists Walk Into a Bar…: TMSIDK Episode 3…
    - 20 Nov 17, 1:00am -
  • Why Doesn’t Everyone Get the Flu Vaccine?
    Season 7, Episode 11 This week on Freakonomics Radio: what if there were a small step you could take that would prevent you from getting sick, stop you from missing work, and help ensure you won’t play a part in killing babies, the sick, and the e…
    - 16 Nov 17, 11:00pm -
  • Nurses to the Rescue!
    They are the most-trusted profession in America (and with good reason). They are critical to patient outcomes (especially in primary care). Could the growing army of nurse practitioners be an answer to the doctor shortage? The data say yes but — b…
    - 16 Nov 17, 4:55am -

Conversable Economist

  • Most Global Violent Deaths are Murder, Not War
    I did not know that by far most violent deaths in the world are a result of murder, not war. The pattern is reported in Global Violent Deaths 2017: Time to Decide, by Claire Mc Evoy and Gergely Hideg. It's a report from Small Arms Survey, which is a…
    - 2 days ago 21 Apr 18, 1:00pm -
  • The Clean Cooking Problem: 2.3 Million Deaths Annually
    "Today around 2.8 billion people – 38% of the global population and almost 50% of the population in developing countries – lack access to clean cooking. Most of them cook their daily meals using solid biomass in traditional stoves. In 25 countri…
    - 3 days ago 20 Apr 18, 1:00pm -
  • A Classic Question: Does Government Can Empower or Stifle?
    If you look at the high-income countries of the world--the US and Canada, much of Europe, Japan, Australia--all of them have government which spend amounts equal to one-third or more of GDP (combining both central and regional or local government). A…
    - 4 days ago 19 Apr 18, 3:34pm -
  • Global Debt Hits All-Time High
    "At $164 trillion—equivalent to 225 percent of global GDP—global debt continues to hit new record highs almost a decade after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Compared with the previous peak in 2009, the world is now 12 percent of GDP deeper in d…
    - 5 days ago 18 Apr 18, 3:07pm -
  • Some Economics for Tax Filing Day
    U.S. tax returns and taxes owed for 2017 are due today, April 17. To commemorate, I offer some connections to five posts about federal income taxes from the last few years. Click on the links if you'd like additional discussion and sources for of any…
    - 6 days ago 17 Apr 18, 1:00pm -

The Economist

VOX - CEPR's Policy Portal

  • !Analysis of the proposal “A constructive approach to euro area reform”
    There is currently both an economic and a political window of opportunity for reform in the euro area. This column, which forms part of VoxEU's Euro Area Reform debate, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals in the recent CEPR Polic…
    - 13 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 12:00am -
  • !Residential sorting and return on investments in transport infrastructure
    Concerns are often raised about increasing spatial segregation by education level in societies. This column uses a study in the Netherlands to show that as preferences for locally provided public goods with a high fixed cost, such as train stations,…
    - 13 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 12:00am -
  • !Corporate investment in Europe: The role of finance
    Despite an extensive literature examining the optimal financing mix, little work exists on firms’ preferences over specific debt financing characteristics. This column uses experimental data from Europe to analyse the link between different externa…
    - 13 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 12:00am -
  • Media and resistance against authoritarian regimes
    During WWII the BBC was actively engaged in fostering opposition to the German occupation throughout Europe. This column uses data on variations in radio signal strength during the war to analyse the role played by the BBC’s “Radio Londra” pro…
    - 2 days ago 22 Apr 18, 12:00am -
  • How communication technologies shape firm organisation and productivity
    Research has shown that lower communication costs can act as a centralising force, prompting workers tend to rely more on the help of others and to specialise on a narrower set of tasks. This column reveals how reduced travel times resulting from a n…
    - 2 days ago 22 Apr 18, 12:00am -

EconLog

  • !Quickly Admitting You're Wrong, by David Henderson
    I wrote last weekend about why I find it relatively easy to admit mistakes.In the week since I've remembered one early instance where I admitted a point quickly and surprised the other person and one instance where a famous economist admitted my po…
    - 12 hours ago 23 Apr 18, 12:50am -
  • !Building more highways will reduce traffic congestion, by Scott Sumner
    Here is Kevin Drum:This is not Econ 101, not by a mile. Just as building more highways attracts more cars and ultimately does nothing for traffic, building more housing attracts more people. We could make housing less expensive in Los Angeles--just…
    - 21 hours ago 22 Apr 18, 3:39pm -
  • I Found It at the Movies, by David Henderson
    With apologies to Pauline Kael.April has been a great month for anti-government movies. I'll highlight three that I saw this month, WITH MULTIPLE SPOILERS: "The Death of Stalin," "Chappaquiddick," and "The Post."The Death of StalinA must see. P…
    - 2 days ago 21 Apr 18, 9:18pm -
  • Friday Night Video: EconVersation on How Economists Helped End the Draft, by David Henderson
    Daniel Sutter, of the Manuel Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University in Troy, Alabama, interviewed me last month of how economists helped end the draft.Here it is. It's about 30 minutes long. (0 COMMENTS)
    - 2 days ago 21 Apr 18, 2:24am -
  • The US is unlikely to default, by Scott Sumner
    David Henderson has a recent post discussing the likelihood of the US government defaulting on its debt, at some point in the future:That motivated me to go back to an article that San Jose State University economist Jeff Hummel and I had published…
    - 3 days ago 20 Apr 18, 4:17pm -