This is an aggregated output from a variety of (mostly) economics blogs that I follow on a regular basis (about the RSS aggregator).
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Talking to David and Christie Romer about whether we are or about to be in a recession. I think that the maximum-likelihood estimates of the probability for all plausible models in which "recession" is a useful and meaningful term are all equal to 1.0000. But:
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Because Yingi has gone to Chinghua and Chang-Tai has gone to Chicago and students–the blighters–want to learn.
We are so pathetically understaffed…
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The clever Jim Hamilton presents us with the U.S. unemployment rate:
And with a "simulated" unemployment rate produced from a model obtained by fitting an AR(2) model with fat-tailed Student-T innovations to the unemployment rate series:
Jim writes:
These simulated data have the same mean, variance, and serial correlation …
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So I have tried various travel organisers over the years but none have come up to scratch. A new one, Tripit, seems to have got it right. The key is how is easy it is to use. Get an email with a flight, car or hotel booking and you email it …
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I have just come across a fantastic blog and a particularly insightful post by Michael Nielsen, an Australian physicist living in Canada who seems to have turned his mind to writing about science. The post is about how academic science needs to catch-up in disseminating information with new technologies.
These failures …
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Let’s see. The iPhone is incredibly popular (with sales this month exceeding 6 million worldwide). Devices such as the Wii have WiFi as the default way of connecting to the Internet. Most home networks are WiFi. Computer and device designers are doing everything in their power to free us of wires …
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My Project Syndicate piece is here. [Link]
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Well, the Doha trade talks have collapsed–yet again! So what happens next? Actually, not much. There was not a whole lot at stake to begin with for poor nations as a whole. (Cotton is a somewhat big deal for West… [Link]
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I have been following Chris Blattman's blog for a while and I am just incredibly impressed by how good it has become. It focuses on Africa–but not exclusively–and contains the most intelligent and timely commentary on economic development around. I… [Link]
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“Is the first zone wide recession in the short history of the eurozone about to be registered?" asks Edward Hugh. I was curious to apply the algorithm for calculating my U.S. recession indicator index to a euro area GDP measure to get an answer.
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Why is the trade deficit, even taking out oil, so large when the dollar is so weak? Maybe some insights can be gleaned from productivity measures. [Link]
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Many people may not care whether our current situation meets the formal definition of a recession, but as I've explained previously, you should. Here's a summary of how I see the economy at the moment. I begin by discussing a new paper by UCLA Professor Ed Leamer, which has also been …
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A while back I questioned Robin Hanson's view that virtually everyone wants to imitate the rich in order to raise their status. Robin recently told me that he's "updated," so I'll stop calling it "Robin Hanson's view." But I still want to present another major counter-example:
Rich people stereotypically employ cleaning …
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Bruno S. Frey and Reiner Eichenberger write,
externalities are not technologically but rather socially determined. There are no inherent properties of a good or service producing external effects, therefore, citizens have to use the political process to determine what is to be considered to be an externality.
I tend to …
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Since people are starting to respond to my actual six questions, I thought I'd return the favor:
Questions:
1. Are markets for ideas/culture less subject to market failure than other markets? Why or why not?
For pure entertainment, probably yes. The "If you don't like it, don''t watch" argument is …
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The Olympic Games are now over. All that remains is tallying up which are the greatest sporting nations on earth. Following the norm of emphasizing the gold medal tally over the total medal count, we can now declare Jamaica the winner; with 2.2 gold medals per million inhabitants, it bolts … [Link]
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Retired neurologist William Bernstein is probably known for his investment books The Intelligent Asset Allocator and The Four Pillars of Investing. His two latest books, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World and The Birth of Plenty, deal with the history of world trade and economic growth, subjects he … [Link]
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I was reading a bedtime story to my daughter Sophie when I stumbled upon the following haiku by Jack Prelutsky, told from the perspective of a mouse: If not for the cat, And the scarcity of cheese, I could be content. Perhaps I am just a sucker for the word … [Link]
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It is almost a year since the US subprime crisis went global.The hope that the repricing of risk would be no more than a brief interruption has been disappointed. So where is the world economy now? Martin Wolf suggests some answers [Link]
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It is almost a year since the US subprime crisis went global.The hope that the repricing of risk would be no more than a brief interruption has been disappointed. So where is the world economy now? Martin Wolf suggests some answers [Link]
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A big drop in British house prices is likely, partly because prices are extraordinarily high and partly because credit has dried up, says Martin Wolf [Link]
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Things have gone better than expected (certainly better than I expected) in Iraq over the past year[1]. On the other hand, things are going very badly in Afghanistan. For those, like me, who have supported the war in Afghanistan and opposed the war in Iraq, this raises some points to consider. …
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I haven’t really overcome my backlog, but I am going to appear at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Friday and Saturday this week, talking about blogging and water, so it seemed like a good idea to run a blog post about water.
My piece in the Fin a couple of weeks …
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I’m taking a break for a while, in an attempt to catch up on various real-life backlogs. I may post a bit at Crooked Timber. While I’m away, check out the many excellent blogs in the blogroll.
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Or will there be? Robert Burns's poetry might have been dismissed as "sentimental doggerel" by Jeremy Paxman but that hasn't stopped diminutive I'm A Celebrity contestant David Gest and pop legend Michael Jackson from recording an album of the much-loved… [Link]
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This is for my Ph.d. class and I've put it beneath the fold. Can you guess who teaches IO, Part II? Hint: it is someone I find it easy to coordinate with and he will be covering price discrimination, among… [Link]
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1. Deep Glamour, a new Virginia Postrel blog, linked to a forthcoming Virginia Postrel book 2. Videos of Nobel Laureates, recent talks 3. Beware what ye do not know, namely peanut butter 4. Robert Solow takes down Kevin Phillips 5…. [Link]
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I have been hearing today from several people not to worry, that Obama has a much better "ground game" going than McCain, especially in rural America, and that's what will make the difference when the votes are tallied in November. Here's one point of view along these lines:
I agree with …
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Yesterday, after the latest data on housing prices were released, there were many analysts saying we might be nearing the bottom of the housing cycle. I have a guest post at The Big Picture on whether housing is anywhere near bottom.
The bottom line is:
Are we near the bottom? …
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The SEC is proposing to move firms towards using international accounting standards:
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously to seek public comment for 60 days on a "road map" to move from U.S. to international accounting. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox predicted U.S. regulators likely would vote again "late this year" …
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It looks like the new version of IE8 may threaten Google's main business: targeted search ads:
Microsoft has unveiled its Internet Explorer 8 browser equipped with a privacy feature that could threaten the advertising model of web search rivals such as Google.
Users of the browser can opt to access …
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Some scientists in Germany say they've found an easier way to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen, possibly opening the way for solar-powered hydrogen production. Hydrogen probably remains our best hope for liberating the transportation network from oil, for reasons that Tom Lee recently explained to Ryan Avent:
I think …
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Why we whine Some clarification about just why the latest income/poverty/insurance report was so bad. There was a significant rise in income among Americans over 65 — those who get much of their income from Social Security. In fact, they’ve been seeing income gains all through the Bush years. But … [Link]
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The 2007 income, poverty and health insurance numbers are out. As far as I can tell on a first read, there’s nothing deeply surprising. Still, they represent a landmark — and not in a good way. The key point is that 2007 was the end of an economic expansion — … [Link]
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The Times seems to have made commenting available on my column today. Nobody tells me anything. But you can also comment here. No Tags [Link]
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But Victoria wasn't always like this. Click here to the 'map' that explains how it seemed a few decades back. The 40 jobs to be lost from the Melbourne plant of car axle manufacturer Unidrive next month and the 80 jobs to be lost at Bosch's PBR are part of … [Link]
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The tax increase was a good idea. It is doing working as intended. But what if it is disallowed? Who gets the hundreds of millions that will have been collected? The government’s alcopops tax increase is turning into a timebomb. In effect from the date it was announced, April 27, … [Link]
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And don't they deserve it? Pressure on the Federal Government to boost taxpayer support for the car industry has intensified, with Ford yesterday declaring it would need additional aid to remain competitive beyond 2010. Days after The Age revealed that Ford would cut hundreds of jobs in Victoria due to … [Link]
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A recent article in the Washington Times by Amy Fagan, entitled “Hollywood’s Conservative Underground, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/j~ (visited Aug. 23, 2008), is a reminder of the curious domination of the American film industry by left liberals. The industry’s left-wing slant drives the Right crazy (if you Google "Hollywood Liberals," you'll encounter an endless …
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For every Ronald Reagan Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jon Voight, Charlton Heston, and a few other prominent conservative Hollywood stars, there are probably more than 50 strongly liberal actors, directors, producers, and other "above the line" categories of filmmakers. The top "below the line" categories of cinematographers and production designers are also …
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Hundreds of millions of men and women all over the world have been tuned to their television sets and clued to their computer screens as they followed the Olympic extravaganza in Beijing. The pride taken by people of different countries in their own athletes as they compete against the best …
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A post Olympic view:
via St Louis Dispatch
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Via Mike Panzner, comes this list of the 50 down 50:
Since the S&P 500 hit a closing peak of 1565.15 on October 9th, the benchmark has lost 18.11% (through this morning). However, 50 stocks, or 10% of the index constituents, have actually fallen by more than 50%. Not surprisingly, the …
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Today’s guest post comes from Mark Thoma, who labors tirelessly in the pacific Northwest. Mark is a Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon, where he also pens the well regarded blog, Economist’s View.
In today's guest commentary, Mark hits upon a subject near and dear to our hearts, …
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History made tonight in Denver
IT SEEMS appropriate to acknowledge the history made this evening—Illinois senator Barack Obama has been nominated as the first ever black nominee to the American presidency from a major political party. And if Intrade is to be believed, he is the favourite in the contest, though …
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The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY’s recommended economics writing:I'm recommending this Financial Times piece by Martin Feldstein in the hopes that someone can explain it to me. Mr Feldstein, seeking to halt downward spiralling house prices, proposes that any borrower be offered the opportunity to swap 20% …
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After the leveling off, up or down?
IN A guest post at Barry Ritholtz' Big Picture site, Mark Thoma gives it to us straight on the latest housing news. First, he says, lots of people have been calling a bottom since, well, since the top. Second, that wrongness doesn't obviate the …
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Robert Dekle, Jonathan Eaton, Samuel S. Kortum, 27 August 2008A correction of international imbalances seems inevitable. What will that entail? This column presents estimates of the changes in trade flows required to rebalance the worlds current accounts and analyses which countries will bear the burdens of adjustment.Full Article: What must happen … [Link]
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Steven B. Kamin, 26 August 2008It has become conventional wisdom that international investors unusual fondness for US assets helps explain the persistence of the US current account deficit. This column argues that US financial assets have not been demonstrably more attractive than those of other industrial economies.Full Article: Are US assets … [Link]
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James J. Heckman, 25 August 2008America has a growing skills problem. This column emphasises the importance of early environments in determining skills. It suggests that to promote skills, public policy should refocus attention to the early years of childhood and away from its current emphasis on the later years. Full … [Link]
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