US – The Economics, Tech, Health and Culture Remix (beta)

Far From Settled | Democracy Fund Voter Study Group

October 16, 2018 Bilal 0

Far From Settled | Democracy Fund Voter Study Group https://ift.tt/2EpQ7Jy Key Findings American public opinion is not consistently pro- or anti-immigration. Politically, no one side holds a decisive upper hand in the debate. Voters are more divided by political party on the question of whether illegal immigrants contribute to American society than on any other issue question except one — views on N.F.L. players kneeling during the national anthem. While partisanship is the dominant factor driving attitudes on immigration, younger voters and voters with at least a college degree have distinctly pro-immigration views regardless of party. Republicans tend to be […]

Three tariff lessons from US interwar history

October 7, 2018 Bilal 0

Three tariff lessons from US interwar history https://ift.tt/2IizJsq National tariff schedules are inevitably detailed and complex, but a broad-brushed macroeconomic picture can be painted using the ratio of custom duties collected to the value of dutiable imports. Figure 1 presents this measure from 1895 to 2000. The upper panel covers an early period of unilateral US legislative acts. The lower panel covers the period of formal multilateral trade agreements that followed – the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO. Figure 1 Ad valorem equivalent tariff rate (ratio of customs duties to dutiable imports) Notes: Vertical lines are […]

Global Trends in Interest Rates – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK

September 19, 2018 Bilal 0

Global Trends in Interest Rates – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK https://ift.tt/2xnZiEi JEL classification: E43, E44, F31, G12 The trend in the world real interest rate for safe and liquid assets fluctuated close to 2 percent for more than a century, but has dropped significantly over the past three decades. This decline has been common among advanced economies, as trends in real interest rates across countries have converged over this period. It was driven by an increase in the convenience yield for safety and liquidity and by lower global economic growth. Publish via – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW […]

Brad DeLong hops aboard the “Employers have a Taboo against raising Wages” bandwagon

September 4, 2018 Bilal 0

Brad DeLong hops aboard the “Employers have a Taboo against raising Wages” bandwagon https://ift.tt/2PvfnP4 – by New Deal democrat For Labor Day Prof. Brad DeLong posted a talk on the implications (or not) of the US being near “full employment.” The arguments on a few of the pages will be familiar to readers of this blog: My only significant quibble here is that “Job Openings” rates from both the JOLTS reports and the NFIB (Small Business) survey have been soaring for over 2 years. If employers knew that they had to pay higher wages to attract workers, but didn’t want […]

Don’t Get Into a Knife Fight with Larry Summers

September 4, 2018 Bilal 0

Don’t Get Into a Knife Fight with Larry Summers https://ift.tt/2wAYkUC Larry Summers is not happy with Joseph Stiglitz’s piece The Myth of Secular Stagnation, which argues that the idea of secular stagnation as put forward by Summers and others was little more than a mask for poor economic policy and performance under the Obama administration. Those responsible for managing the 2008 recovery (the same individuals bearing culpability for the under-regulation of the economy in its pre-crisis days, to whom President Barack Obama inexplicably turned to fix what they had helped break) found the idea of secular stagnation attractive, because it […]

Setting the Record Straight on Secular Stagnation

September 4, 2018 Bilal 0

Setting the Record Straight on Secular Stagnation https://ift.tt/2Q0tSeQ Echoing conservatives like John Taylor, the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz recently suggested that the concept of secular stagnation was a fatalistic doctrine invented to provide an excuse for poor economic performance during the Obama years. This is simply not right. CAMBRIDGE – Joseph Stiglitz recently dismissed the relevance of secular stagnation to the American economy, and in the process attacked (without naming me) my work in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. I am not a disinterested observer, but this is not the first time that I find […]

Robert Samuelson Says Our Wage Increases Went to Health Care, BLS Disagrees

September 4, 2018 Bilal 0

Robert Samuelson Says Our Wage Increases Went to Health Care, BLS Disagrees https://ift.tt/2LSerCk Robert Samuelson used his Labor Day column to tell us that our pay really didn’t end up in the pockets of rich people. The problem is that it all went to employer-provided health care insurance. The argument is that health care costs have vastly exceeded the overall rate of inflation. Since a standard health care benefit is larger as a share of the pay of a low-wage worker than a high-wage worker, the increased cost of the benefit took away the money that otherwise would have gone […]

Trump’s Policies Will Displace the Dollar

September 4, 2018 Bilal 0

Trump’s Policies Will Displace the Dollar https://ift.tt/2NOhSLO The benefits that the US reaps from having the world’s main international currency are diminishing with the rise of the euro and renminbi. And now President Donald Trump’s misguided trade wars and anti-Iran sanctions will accelerate the move away from the dollar. NEW YORK – Back in 1965, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, then France’s Minister of Finance, famously called the benefits that the United States reaped from the dollar’s role as the world’s main reserve currency an “exorbitant privilege.” The benefits are diminishing with the rise of the euro and China’s renminbi as competing […]

Driven by climate change, fire reshapes US West

September 3, 2018 Bilal 0

Driven by climate change, fire reshapes US West https://ift.tt/2NdxZpg In this Aug. 2, 2018, file photo, a tower of smoke pours from Cow Mountain as Burney, Calif., firefighter Bob May keeps a watch on surrounding vegetation for spot fires during the River wildfire near Lakeport, Calif. Wildfires that have long shaped the landscape of the U.S. West are getting bigger and burning longer – bringing more choking smoke, deadly mudslides and habitat loss. (Kent Porter/The Press Democrat via AP, File) Wildfires in the U.S. have charred more than 10,000 square miles so far this year, an area larger than the […]

The Investment Boom…or Not | Econbrowser

September 3, 2018 Bilal 0

The Investment Boom…or Not | Econbrowser https://ift.tt/2N7u1yF Fixed nonresidential investment is rising at a rapid clip. However, there are some nuances to the headline story. Figure 1: Nonresidential fixed investment, in billions of Ch.2012$ (blue), and in billions of dollars (red), both SAAR, both on log-scale. Source: BEA, 2018Q2 2nd release. Some sizable portion of recent investment is associated with the mining/drilling/fracking phenomenon. Figure 2: Contributions to overall nonresidential fixed investment growth of structures investment in mining (red), and all else (blue). Source: BEA, 2018Q2 2nd release, and author’s calculations. For the moment, investment looks like it should be sustained. […]