NYT - Economy

Bloomberg View

Calculated Risk

  • !Oil Prices Up almost 50% Year-over-year
    First, an excerpt from a research note by Merrill Lynch economists today: If bad luck intersects with bad policy, a recession becomes a real risk. We would keep a particularly close eye on two traditional business-cycle killers-the Fed response to st…
    - 4 hours ago 21 May 18, 3:08pm -
  • !Chicago Fed "Index Points to Little Change in Economic Growth in April"
    From the Chicago Fed: Index Points to Little Change in Economic Growth in AprilThe Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) ticked up to +0.34 in April from +0.32 in March. Two of the four broad categories of indicators that make up the index incr…
    - 6 hours ago 21 May 18, 12:36pm -
  • !Sunday Night Futures
    Weekend:• Schedule for Week of May 20, 2018Monday:• 8:30 AM ET, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for April. This is a composite index of other data.From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: S&P 500 are up 16, and DOW futures are up 19…
    - 19 hours ago 20 May 18, 11:19pm -
  • "Do People Really Downsize?"
    Some interesting analysis from economist Josh Lehner, at the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis on whether people actually downsize in retirement. This is important since so many baby boomers are reaching retirement age. Will they downsize or will…
    - 1 day ago 20 May 18, 12:31pm -
  • Schedule for Week of May 20, 2018
    The key economic reports this week are April New and Existing home sales.----- Monday, May 21st -----8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for April. This is a composite index of other data.----- Tuesday, May 22nd -----10:00 AM ET: Richmon…
    - 2 days ago 19 May 18, 12:12pm -

The Undercover Economist

  • The world is not as gloomy, or wonderful, as you may think
    Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 20 April 2018. Is the glass half full, half empty, or laced with cyanide? Last week I wrote about “statistics, fast and slow” — the gap between the world as we intuitively perceive it, a…
    - 3 days ago 18 May 18, 11:01am -
  • Statistics, Fast and Slow
    Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 13 April 2018. One way to understand China is to look at the statistics. Real income per person has increased nearly tenfold since 1990. Since the early 1980s, the number of extremely poor peo…
    - 10 days ago 11 May 18, 11:01am -
  • Understanding the wisdom and madness of crowds
    James Surowiecki’s modern classic The Wisdom of Crowds (UK) (US) set a very high bar for the field. (Why has James not written another book?) This is one of those books that gets talked about a lot, with the emphasis on the idea that the average…
    - 13 days ago 8 May 18, 1:30pm -
  • Judge the value of what you have by what you had to give up to get it
    Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 6 April 2018. I’m not one to collect inspirational slogans, but here’s one I like: “Judge the value of what you have by what you had to give up to get it.” Perhaps I took it more serio…
    - 17 days ago 4 May 18, 11:01am -
  • Understanding Algorithms
    You’ve probably noticed that there are a lot of algorithms about these days, doing everything from recommending a walking route to figuring out how to beat the world’s best players at Go. But what are they, really, how do they work, and how will…
    - 21 days ago 30 Apr 18, 1:01pm -

Marginal Revolution

  • !The economics of Ethiopian floriculture
    Most cut flowers have a high value-weight ratio, and are very perishable.  Flowers are consumed throughout the year, and must respond to varying consumer requirements through time.  Thus, the industry depends on air transport and cold-chain logisti…
    - 1 hour ago 21 May 18, 5:20pm -
  • !Monday assorted links
    1. Are people in the suburbs happier?  You don’t need to click on this one to know the answer. 2. “Our newest royal bride, meanwhile, has already shut down her blog and deleted her Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. From now on, even as h…
    - 3 hours ago 21 May 18, 3:59pm -
  • !Dematerialization: Humanity’s Biggest Surprise
    Andrew McAfee argues that the Earth Day environmentalists correctly diagnosed the problem, a worsening environment, but were wrong about the solution, degrowth. In fact, the drive to reduce costs by making better use of resources has led to a dramati…
    - 7 hours ago 21 May 18, 11:25am -
  • !Kenneth Arrow, weather officer
    Following the U.S. declaration of war on December 8, 1941, Arrow, who was certain to be drafted, enlisted in the hope of securing an officer’s commission in the U.S. Army Corps where he believed he would have a chance to use his mathematical and st…
    - 14 hours ago 21 May 18, 5:10am -
  • !*Unfabling the East*
    That is the new and noteworthy book by Jürgen Osterhammel, and the subtitle is The Enlightenment’s Encounter with Asia.  Here is one good bit of many: For Alexander Hamilton, there was nothing more acoustically disturbing on his extensive travels…
    - 15 hours ago 21 May 18, 4:09am -

Beat The Press

  • !Are We at Full Employment? Taking Issue With Paul Krugman
    Paul Krugman had an interesting blog post this morning in which he attributed the continuing weakness of wage growth to an increase in monopsony power. I'm a skeptic on this one since the collapse in wage growth happens to coincide with the Great Rec…
    - 9 hours ago 21 May 18, 9:30am -
  • !The Trade Deficit with China: Up Sharply for Those Who Care
    With Donald Trump declaring a truce in his "trade war" with China, it might be a good time to check the charts. According to data from the Commerce Department, the US trade deficit with China was $91.9 billion in the first three months of 2018. That…
    - 14 hours ago 21 May 18, 4:33am -
  • Would Better Measurement of Software Cut US Trade Deficit in Half?
    That's what a story in the Financial Times tells readers. I don't think they have much of a case.The argument is attributed to Hal Varian, Google's chief economist and a former professor of mine when I was in grad school at Michigan. According to Va…
    - 1 day ago 20 May 18, 7:40am -
  • Wealth Inequality: It's Not Clear What It Means
    The NYT had a column by Christina Gibson-Davis and Christine Percheski telling readers that wealth inequality had grown much more among families with children than among the elderly. While there is little doubt that inequality has increased hugely ov…
    - 2 days ago 19 May 18, 9:21am -
  • More Mind Reading at the NYT: Tells Readers What Trump "Regards" as "Welfare"
    It's really great that Tthe New York Times' reporters are able to read people's minds, especially when it comes to Donald Trump. After all, the guy constantly contradicts himself and makes assertions that clearly are not true, so it might be difficul…
    - 3 days ago 19 May 18, 3:47am -

Paul Krugman

Economists View

  • !Links
    Monopsony, Rigidity, and the Wage Puzzle (Wonkish) - Paul Krugman Does the New Keynesian Model Have a Uniqueness Problem? - NBER The Old Allure of New Money - Robert Shiller Bitcoin, Vollgeld, and popular views of money - VoxEU The...
    - 1 hour ago 21 May 18, 5:21pm -
  • Links
    America’s Dismal Turning Point - Paul Krugman Don’t Fall for Employers’ Whining About a ‘Skills Gap’ - Bloomberg Trump lags behind his predecessors on economic growth - Brookings Monetary policy and inequality: A new channel - VoxEU Nominal…
    - 4 days ago 17 May 18, 5:22pm -
  • Links
    Economics trails the sciences in attracting a diverse student mix - Mary Daly Rethinking Stigler’s Theory of Regulation: Regulatory Capture or Deregulatory Capture? - ProMarket Just Saying Yes to Drug Companies - Paul Krugman On neoliberalism - Stu…
    - 5 days ago 16 May 18, 5:03pm -
  • Links
    What’s Good for Pharma Isn’t Good for America - Paul Krugman Cryptocurrencies’ challenge to central banks - VoxEU We can't ignore climate change - Pyndyck and Stock Finance and the Blockchain: A Primer - Cecchetti & Schoenholtz The “accountin…
    - 7 days ago 14 May 18, 5:06pm -
  • Links
    The Death of Acceleration (Wonkish) - Paul Krugman Fiscal policy remains in the stone age - mainly macro It's a (low inflation) trap! - Antonio Fatas Initial Coin Scams - Nouriel Roubini Let Them Eat Trump Steaks - Paul Krugman...
    - 10 days ago 11 May 18, 8:40pm -

Naked Capitalism

Liberty Street Economics

  • !Economic Predictions with Big Data: The Illusion of Sparsity
    The availability of large data sets, combined with advances in the fields of statistics, machine learning, and econometrics, have generated interest in forecasting models that include many possible predictive variables. Are economic data sufficiently…
    - 8 hours ago 21 May 18, 11:00am -
  • Just Released: New York Fed Press Briefing Highlights Changes in Home Equity and How It’s Used
    Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw At a press briefing this morning, economists at the New York Fed focused on...
    - 4 days ago 17 May 18, 2:00pm -
  • Recycling Oil Revenue
    Michael Fosco and Thomas Klitgaard Almost half the U.S. merchandise trade deficit was tied to petroleum ten years ago. Oil prices were above $100 a...
    - 7 days ago 14 May 18, 11:00am -
  • Forecasts of the Lost Recovery
    The years following the Great Recession were challenging for forecasters for a variety of reasons, including an unprecedented policy environment. This post, based on our recently released working paper, documents the real-time forecasting performance…
    - 12 days ago 9 May 18, 11:00am -
  • Have the Biggest U.S. Banks Become Less Complex?
    The global financial crisis, and the ensuing Dodd-Frank Act, identified size and complexity as determinants of banks’ systemic importance, increasing the potential risks to financial stability. While it’s known that big banks haven’t shrunk, th…
    - 14 days ago 7 May 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

  • !China Now Has a Trade Deficit
    A large share of the concern over China's effect on the world economy starts with large Chinese trade surpluses. But in the first few months of 2018, China's trade balance was negative(using the standard broad measure of the current account balance).…
    - 4 hours ago 21 May 18, 2:30pm -
  • The Rising Number of US Teachers Leaving for Other Fields
    The rate of US teachers leaving for other jobs is on the rise. Adam Grundy of the US Census Bureau reports in a short note (May 2018): "Teachers are leaving their jobs for other careers at a rate that has grown steadily every year in the past three…
    - 3 days ago 18 May 18, 2:46pm -
  • Both Sides of the Vaping Controversy
    Could vaping and e-cigarettes reduce the toll of death and illness due to smoking conventional cigarettes? The most recent issue of the Annual Review of Public Health (April 2018) has a nice pro-and-con. On one side, David B. Abrams, Allison M. Glass…
    - 5 days ago 16 May 18, 3:21pm -
  • Interview Bonanza: Dow, Harcourt, Goodhart, Lawson, Nelson, Chang
    Some people, like me, like reading and listening to interviews with economists. It's energizing, invigorating, exhilarating. On the suspicion that readers of this blog might have a higher-than-average propensity to share this preference, I commend to…
    - 7 days ago 14 May 18, 2:46pm -
  • More From Your Horseshoe Crab Blood Economics Leader
    About a year ago I reported on "The Economics of Horseshoe Crab Blood, referring to an article by Caren Chesler, "The Blood of the Horseshoe Crab" in Popular Mechanics (April 13, 2017). The subtitle of the story reads: "Horseshoe crab blood is an irr…
    - 10 days ago 11 May 18, 3:27pm -

The Economist

VOX - CEPR's Policy Portal

  • !Fiscal rules and the role of the Commission
    The proposals on fiscal frameworks and rules in the recent CEPR Policy Insight on euro area reform showcase the multiple dimensions of the fundamental dilemmas we are confronted with in the governance of the euro area. This column, part of the VoxE…
    - 19 hours ago 21 May 18, 12:00am -
  • !Bitcoin, Vollgeld, and popular views of money
    On 10 June 2018, Switzerland will be the first country to have a referendum on the introduction of Sovereign Money ('Vollgeld'). This column argues that the Vollgeld project and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin build on popular fantasies about mo…
    - 19 hours ago 21 May 18, 12:00am -
  • !Monopsony in online labour markets
    Monopsony refers to the market power that employers wield in labour markets. This column explores monopsony power in online labour markets, using observational and experimental data from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. Both datasets suggest an e…
    - 19 hours ago 21 May 18, 12:00am -
  • The levelling effects of good quality early childcare
    In many societies and for many families, the responsibility for looking after very young children during the day has passed from parents to third-party care providers, prompting a hotly contested debate about the merits of early childcare and how it…
    - 2 days ago 20 May 18, 12:00am -
  • When quotas reduce discrimination
    Affirmative action policies are widely used to tackle the underrepresentation of certain groups. However, the efficiency of these policies is fiercely debated. This column uses novel data from India to explore how affirmative action quotas affect eve…
    - 3 days ago 19 May 18, 12:00am -

EconLog

  • !The new Italian government, by Alberto Mingardi
    I had a chat with the always thoughtful Mary Kissel for the WSJ Opinion: Foreign Edition podcast on the new government which is possibly forming in Italy these days. It is, in a way, a laboratory in the sense that for the first time "populist" (I do…
    - 2 hours ago 21 May 18, 4:37pm -
  • !CBS Sunday Morning Is Often Implicitly Libertarian, by David Henderson
    A few years ago, I loved watching CBS Sunday Morning for the beautiful 45-second nature scenes they show right at the end. I finally got smart a few months ago and started DVRing it. Then I can fast forward through everything else I love and get to t…
    - 18 hours ago 21 May 18, 1:06am -
  • UBI vs. guaranteed jobs vs. wage subsidies, by Scott Sumner
    Scott Alexander has a very long blog post discussing the advantages of a universal basic income program over a guaranteed jobs program. It's probably the best single defense of the UBI that I have ever read. (I wish Alexander had become an economis…
    - 2 days ago 19 May 18, 11:23pm -
  • One Possible Benefit of the Royal Wedding, by David Henderson
    UPDATE BELOW:I woke this morning at 4 a.m. PDT and, as is my wont, turned on ESPN. But the woman on ESPN was saying that many people were watching the royal wedding. Ooh, I thought, I forgot. So I turned to ABC and watched it for a while as I did m…
    - 2 days ago 19 May 18, 6:33pm -
  • Workers Affect Worker Safety Too, by David Henderson
    When I taught a cost/benefit analysis course, one of the topics I covered was worker safety. Using W. Kip Viscusi's excellent entry "Job Safety" in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, I showed that there is an implicit market for safety in the w…
    - 3 days ago 18 May 18, 11:22pm -