NYT - Economy

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Calculated Risk

  • !Earlier: Philly Fed Manufacturing Survey "Showed Improvement" in September
    Earlier from the Philly Fed: September 2017 Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey Manufacturing firms reported an improvement in regional manufacturing conditions in September. The survey’s current indicators for general activity, new orders, and s…
    - 8 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 7:00pm -
  • !Fed's Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth increased in Q2
    The Federal Reserve released the Q2 2017 Flow of Funds report today: Flow of Funds.According to the Fed, household net worth increased in Q2 2017 compared to Q1 2017:The net worth of households and nonprofits rose to $96.2 trillion during the second…
    - 9 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 5:10pm -
  • !Black Knight: Mortgage Delinquencies increase in Hurricane Affected Areas
    From Black Knight: Black Knight’s First Look at August 2017 Mortgage Data: Hurricane Harvey Impact Already Being Felt in the Mortgage Market as Delinquencies Jump 16 Percent in Affected Areas• Nationally, delinquencies remained relatively flat fr…
    - 13 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 1:58pm -
  • !CoreLogic: "2.8 million Homes still in negative equity" at end of Q2 2017
    From CoreLogic: CoreLogic Reports 2.8 Million Residential Properties with a Mortgage Still in Negative EquityCoreLogic® ... today released its Q2 2017 home equity analysis which shows U.S. homeowners with mortgages (roughly 63 percent of all homeown…
    - 14 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 12:46pm -
  • !Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decrease to 259,000
    The DOL reported:In the week ending September 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 259,000, a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 2,000 from 284,000 to…
    - 14 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 12:34pm -

The Undercover Economist

  • Ideas about the past, present and future of the economy
    Books Book of the week is James C Scott’s Against The Grain (UK) (US) – an examination of the origins of civilisation. Scott – best known for the magnificent Seeing Like A State (US) (UK) – is on fascinating form. There’s a fine long r…
    - 4 days ago 18 Sep 17, 12:52pm -
  • Your chance to vote for the 51st thing that made the modern economy
    It’s been such fun working on the radio series and book Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy – but one of the frustrations was all the fascinating ideas, inventions and stories that I couldn’t squeeze into the book. Well, now there are s…
    - 6 days ago 16 Sep 17, 1:55pm -
  • The psychological biases that leave us unprepared for disaster
    This column was written and first published a week before Hurricane Harvey struck the US coast. – TH Who saw the global financial crisis coming, who didn’t and who deserved blame for the forecasting failure? After a decade of debating these quest…
    - 7 days ago 15 Sep 17, 1:10pm -
  • Undercover Monday – ideas about decision-making
    A few interesting books have crossed my desk recently. Garry Kasparov’s Deep Thinking (UK) (US) promises to reflect on “Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins”, although on that particular point it is not especially profo…
    - 18 days ago 4 Sep 17, 12:27pm -
  • What We Get Wrong About Technology
    Blade Runner (1982) is a magnificent film, but there’s something odd about it. The heroine, Rachael, seems to be a beautiful young woman. In reality, she’s a piece of technology — an organic robot designed by the Tyrell Corporation. She has a l…
    - 24 days ago 29 Aug 17, 1:17pm -

Marginal Revolution

  • !What should I ask Doug Irwin?
    I will be doing a Conversation with Doug in early October, although with no associated public event, just a later podcast and transcript.  Here is Wikipedia on Doug: Douglas Irwin is the John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in the Social Scienc…
    - 9 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 5:36pm -
  • !Thursday assorted links
    1. Why Catalan separatism will fail. 2. “Quebec’s language watchdog has softened its approach to anglicisms, now deeming terms like “grilled-cheese,” “cocktail” and softball” as acceptable for everyday usage.” 3. Jacob Levy on black l…
    - 11 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 3:42pm -
  • !Google City!
    Amazon is looking for a city for its new headquarters. Boring! Google is looking to build a city. The FT reports: Google’s parent company was working on a sweeping plan to build a city from the ground up, the executive in charge of its urban innova…
    - 15 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 11:24am -
  • !Greg Clark visits Australia and finds high rates of status persistence
    The co-authors on this paper (pdf) are Andrew Leigh and Mike Pottenger, here is the abstract: The paper estimates long run social mobility in Australia 1870–2017 tracking the status of rare surnames. The status information includes occupations from…
    - 21 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 5:26am -
  • !Accurate genomic prediction of human height
    They used to say this couldn’t be done: We construct genomic predictors for heritable and extremely complex human quantitative traits (height, heel bone density, and educational attainment) using modern methods in high dimensional statistics (i.e.,…
    - 22 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 4:37am -

Beat The Press

  • !Doesn't Anyone Care About Budget Deficits? The Fed Sells Off Assets
    It is more than a bit bizarre that no one seems to pay any attention to the budgetary implications of the Fed's decision to start sellling off its assets. The impact is potentially fairly large in the scheme of things, possibly as much as $600 billio…
    - 14 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 12:07pm -
  • !NYT Overstates German Unemployment Rate by Two Percentage Points
    Germany's official measure of unemployment is constructed differently than the U.S. measure. They count people working part-time who want full-time jobs as being unemployed. In contrast, these people are counted in the United States as being employed…
    - 18 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 8:44am -
  • !The NYT Is Far Too Generous on the Republican Tax Cut Plan
    The NYT criticized the Republican tax-cutting plans. In particular, it focuses on the plan to apply a 15 percent or 25 percent corporate tax rate for all business pass-through income. This is in place of the current individual income tax rate, which…
    - 21 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 5:17am -
  • !Why Don't Normal Liability Rules Put Equifax Out of Business?
    Bryce Covert has an interesting column in the NYT arguing that Equifax and the other two private credit agencies be replaced with a public system. There does seem to be a good case here.After all, what do we get from competition in this story? As Co…
    - 21 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 5:06am -
  • Eduardo Porter Criticizes NYT Editorial Calling for Increased Protectionism
    It's good to see the NYT has diverse voices on economic issues. In his "Economic Scene" column on the economy's supposed labor shortage, Porter argued that "raising barriers to imports — inviting retaliation from trading partners — is exactly the…
    - 2 days ago 20 Sep 17, 4:40am -

Liberty Street Economics

  • The New York Fed DSGE Model Forecast—August 2017
    This post presents our quarterly update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since May 2017.
    - 14 days ago 8 Sep 17, 11:00am -
  • What Drives International Bank Credit?
    A major question facing policymakers is how to deal with slumps in bank credit.
    - 16 days ago 6 Sep 17, 11:00am -
  • At the New York Fed: The Appropriate Government Role in U.S. Mortgage Markets
    While the U.S. mortgage finance system was at the center of the recent financial crisis, it remains largely untouched by legislative reforms. At the center of these conversations are Fannie Mae and Freddie Macboth of which were placed into federal co…
    - 30 days ago 23 Aug 17, 11:00am -
  • Just Released: Introducing the SCE Labor Market Survey
    The New York Fed has just released new data on individuals’ experiences and expectations in the labor market. These data have been collected every four months since March 2014 as part of the Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE). In this post we in…
    - 31 days ago 21 Aug 17, 3:00pm -
  • “Hey, Economist!” How Was Your Ph.D. Internship?
    This week, four Ph.D. students in economics and finance are wrapping up their summer internships at the New York Fed’s Research Department. The ten-week internshipswhich are compensatedoffer interns the opportunity to further their dissertation res…
    - 35 days ago 18 Aug 17, 1:34pm -

Freakonomics

  • !The Stupidest Thing You Can Do With Your Money
    Season 7, Episode 3 This week on Freakonomics Radio: it’s hard enough to save for a house, tuition, or retirement. Stephen J. Dubner asks, “So why are we willing to pay big fees for subpar investment returns?” Enter the low-cost index fund. Th…
    - 5 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 10:00pm -
  • !What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series)
    We explore votes for English, Indonesian, and … Esperanto! The search for a common language goes back millennia, but so much still gets lost in translation. Will technology finally solve that? The post What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (E…
    - 24 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 3:00am -
  • Womb to Tomb: TMSIDK Episode 27
    Alexandra Petri (Washington Post columnist) is our special guest co-host, with AJ Jacobs (author of It's All Relative) as real-time fact-checker. TMSIDK covers everything from birth to earth, including pregnancy tests, parenting, monogamy, aging bett…
    - 4 days ago 18 Sep 17, 12:00am -
  • “How Much Brain Damage Do I Have?”
    Season 7, Episode 2 This week on Freakonomics Radio: John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. also getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly retired. Stephen J. Dubner brings yo…
    - 7 days ago 14 Sep 17, 10:00pm -
  • Why Don’t We All Speak the Same Language? (Earth 2.0 Series)
    There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day Tower of Babel?The post Why Don’t We All Speak the Same Language? (Earth 2.0 Series) appeared first on Freakonomics.
    - 8 days ago 14 Sep 17, 3:00am -

Conversable Economist

  • Antitrust in the 1520s: Diet of Nuremberg, Martin Luther, and the City of Augsberg
    Monopolies can come into existence for reasons that are beneficial to consumers: for example, perhaps a monopoly has patent protection for an innovative new product, or perhaps economies of scale allow a big company to sell at a cheaper price. Howeve…
    - 2 days ago 19 Sep 17, 3:15pm -
  • Should the Federal Reserve Buy Corporate Bonds?
    When (not "if") the next recession arrives, the Federal Reserve will want to take action to stimulate the economy. In recent decades, this action has often involved cutting a certain targeted interest rate--the "federal funds interest" rate--by 3-4 p…
    - 3 days ago 18 Sep 17, 3:47pm -
  • Federal Subsidies for Health Insurance
    When I posted a couple of days ago on the most recent Census Bureau report about "Health Insurance Coverage in the United States," I didn't know that the Congressional Budget Office was about to come out with an updated set of estimates for "Federal…
    - 7 days ago 15 Sep 17, 2:23pm -
  • Health Insurance Coverage in the US
    Since a number of major provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 took effect in January 2014, the share of Americans without health insurance has dropped substantially. But that success story remains incomplete, and the th…
    - 9 days ago 13 Sep 17, 1:00pm -
  • "Rationality is an Assumption I Make About Other People"
    Self-aware people recognize that they sometimes act irrationally. So how can self-aware economists assume that other people act rationally? Here's how David D. Friedman answered that question in his 1996 book Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday L…
    - 10 days ago 12 Sep 17, 2:10pm -

The Economist

VOX - CEPR's Policy Portal

  • !Income mobility and welfare: A new approach
    Research on economic mobility has failed to disentangle the underlying economic drivers. In particular, opportunities for upward movement represent welfare-enhancing mobility, while risky income shocks represent welfare-reducing mobility. This column…
    - 3 hours ago 22 Sep 17, 12:00am -
  • !Quality and quality variation beget export success
    Pinpointing how multi-product firms organise their operations is key for understanding the drivers of global competitiveness. This column presents a theory on the behaviour of multi-product firms when cost and quality competitiveness jointly determin…
    - 3 hours ago 22 Sep 17, 12:00am -
  • !Unfinished Business: The North Atlantic crisis and its aftermath
    Nine years ago, Lehman Brothers collapsed and the economic world changed. This column introduces a new book that asks how the North Atlantic economy became so unstable that the failure of a medium-sized US investment bank could topple the entire Nort…
    - 3 hours ago 22 Sep 17, 12:00am -
  • Kinship, cooperation, and culture
    Daily life requires us to cooperate with a large number of – potentially unrelated – people. This column argues that cultural variation in the ways people cooperate with each other are empirically associated with fundamentally different religious…
    - 1 day ago 21 Sep 17, 12:00am -
  • The forward guidance paradox
    In New Keynesian models, a promise to hold interest rates lower in the future has powerful effects on economic activity and inflation today. This result relies on a strong link between expected future policy rates and current activity, and also a bel…
    - 1 day ago 21 Sep 17, 12:00am -

EconLog

  • !Feldstein's Insight on Standards of Living, by David Henderson
    In a recent op/ed in the Wall Street Journal, my former boss at the Council of Economic Advisers and Harvard economist Martin Feldstein points out that the data on real incomes in the United States systematically understate its growth. The article is…
    - 2 hours ago 22 Sep 17, 12:07am -
  • !Left and Right: A Socratic Dialogue, by Bryan Caplan
    [Backstory: Greek luminaries Socrates, Pericles, and Leonidas have time-traveled from ancient times to the 21st century.  A few months after immersion in the modern world, Pericles is a convinced member of what modernity calls "the left," while Leon…
    - 8 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 6:42pm -
  • Don't change the forecast; change the policy, by Scott Sumner
    Today the Fed abandoned its previous forecast, which called for 2% inflation in 2018. Now they forecast that inflation will run below 2% in 2018, as it has for most of the past decade.I agree that it is likely that inflation will run below 2% in…
    - 1 day ago 20 Sep 17, 9:50pm -
  • My 1983 Response to Koch Lobbying on Oil, by David Henderson
    In preparation for my imminent retirement, I've been going through files and files, throwing things out but keeping things too.I came across a letter I wrote to George Pearson of Koch Industries, who took me to dinner in July 1983 to lobby me on so…
    - 1 day ago 20 Sep 17, 8:49pm -
  • The Wonder of International Adoption: High School Grades in Sweden, by Bryan Caplan
    Moving young children from the Third World to Sweden wipes out about half of their national IQ deficit.  What about performance in high school?  Vinnerljung et al.'s "School Performance at Age 16 Among International Adoptees" (International Social…
    - 1 day ago 20 Sep 17, 6:49pm -

Paul Krugman

Economists View

  • Links for 09-20-17
    The great unwind begins - Jim Hamilton Colleges as class reproduction machines - Brookings How Food Spending Varies with Income - Jayson Lusk The harm of high housing costs - Stumbling and Mumbling VIrtues and Flaws: NAFTA, and Economists' Views...
    - 1 day ago 20 Sep 17, 10:40pm -
  • FOMC statement
    No change in the target range for the federal funds rate, balance sheet unwinding to begin in October: Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement: Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in July indicates that the labor market has…
    - 1 day ago 20 Sep 17, 6:07pm -
  • Pessimism and the ZLB

    - 2 days ago 20 Sep 17, 1:08am -
  • Links for 09-19-17
    Is Larry Summers a Fan of Nominal GDP Level Targeting? - David Beckworth The Global Cost of the Eurozone’s 2012 Fiscal Coordination Failure - Brad Setser Undergraduate economics teaching moves into 21st century - mainly macro An evidence-based Fed…
    - 2 days ago 19 Sep 17, 8:49pm -
  • Fed Would Surprise Markets If It Stays Hawkish
    Tim Duy: Fed Would Surprise Markets If It Stays Hawkish, by Tim Duy: The Federal Reserve meeting this week will likely end with unchanged policy rates and the initiation of balance-sheet normalization. Market participants widely expect these outcomes…
    - 2 days ago 19 Sep 17, 8:49pm -

Naked Capitalism

  • !2:00PM Water Cooler 9/21/2017
    By Lambert Strether of Corrente Trade “USTR CONSIDERS NON-BINDING DISPUTE SETTLEMENT MECHANISM IN NAFTA: The United States is considering dropping a binding mechanism in NAFTA for resolving government-to-government trade disputes in favor of a soft…
    - 9 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 6:00pm -
  • !Toys R Us: Another Private Equity Casualty
    What killed Toys R US? Amazon,Walmart? The numbers say the company's yet the latest of a string of retail casualties of private equity greed.
    - 13 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 1:55pm -
  • !Links 09/21/17

    - 16 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 10:55am -
  • !Hack of SEC May Have Yielded Illicit Trading Gains
    SEC joins Equifax in reporting its own cybersecurity breach. Failure to safeguard information is not a problem unique to the private sector.
    - 16 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 10:50am -
  • !California Rewrites the GOP’s Climate Playbook
    Some California Republican legislators are breaking ranks and beginning to embrace modest pro-regulatory positions on climate change.
    - 19 hours ago 21 Sep 17, 7:55am -