In an interesting new paper, “The U.S. Housing Price Bubble: Bernanke versus Taylor,” forthcoming in Journal of Economics and Business, Abrar Fitwi, Scott Hein, and Jeffrey Mercer examine two possible causes of the housing price boom that preceded the financial crisis. One, which I explored in a paper for the 2007 Jackson Hole conference, argues that the Fed’s unusually low interest rate during 2003-05 was a factor.
Can Xi do it? This is the biggest political question in the world today. “Yes, Xi can,” some tell me in Beijing. “No, he can’t,” say others. The wise know that nobody knows.
A capital flight mechanism I hadn't thought of, from Hans-Werner Sinn (HT Marginal revolution). Basically, Greek citizens take out loans from local banks, funded largely by the Greek central bank, which acquires funds through the European Central Bank’s emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) scheme. They then transfer the money to other countries to purchase foreign assets (or redeem their debts),...
Like most people who create an “ism,” John Maynard Keynes quickly found his followers running ahead of him. “You are more Keynesian than I am,” he once told a young American economist. Now it is the turn of his biographer, Robert Skidelsky, to become distinctly more Keynesian than Keynes.
Ministers and education officials from a wide range of countries and international agencies converged on Incheon in the Republic of Korea last month to discuss a new set of development goals at the World Education Forum. A draft document lays out a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will follow on from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that included education goals to be accomplished by 2015.
NATO’s character and mission were clearly delineated at its inception. Its mission was to countervail Soviet military power, specifically an attack on Western Europe. The fixed focus was the Fulda Gap.
In our discussion about "designer babies," I took on Dan Klein's main argument against them--that we might get super achieving babies and, thus, lose our coherence with the past.
The gratuitous controversy continues over whether foods from plants and animals that have been genetically engineered should be labeled as such. The battle has been fought in the media, in state legislatures, through referendum issues, and in federal courts. Most labeling proposals have failed.
The Third Way is a position that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by synthesizing conservative economic and social welfare policies. It was exemplified by a group of political leaders in the 1990s that included President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, and leaders of Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Israel.
In his annual address to parliament on April 21, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reported that gross domestic product (GDP) had declined 2 percent in the first quarter. Medvedev assured the Russian people that his economic team had everything under control, that the recession would be mild, and that growth would resume in 2016.
by Charles Blahousvia e21, Economic Policies for the 21st Century
Sunday, May 31, 2015
For the last four years I have had the honor of serving as one of Social Security's two public trustees (along with former CBO Director Robert D. Reischauer), co-authoring the annual trustees' reports. These reports are required under the Social Security Act and serve as the primary resource on Social Security's current and projected financial condition.
It seems as if there's a strong case for the federal government to charge Hillary Clinton with a fairly serious crime. A former prosecutor named Andy McCarthy states: Given that Congress's array of campaign finance laws are designed to prevent precisely what the Clinton Foundation has wrought -- namely, the appearance of political influence on sales -- one would think the FBI and the Justice Department would be obliged to investigate.
by Charles Blahousvia e21, Economic Policies for the 21st Century
Monday, June 1, 2015
My last piece reviewed several recent criticisms of the Social Security trustees' projection history by KonstantinKashin, Gary King and Samir Soneji. This piece reviews other criticisms by the same authors, this time focusing on process and presentation.
It isn’t every day that a former general counsel at one security agency interviews the current head of another security agency. And it really isn’t every day that the director of the FBI calls big company general counsels “obstructionist weenies.”
interview with Kevin Warshvia Brookings Institution
Monday, June 1, 2015
Hoover fellow Kevin Warsh discusses whether the Fed increased inequality by pushing up prices of stocks, bonds, and other assets via quantative easing.
Is climate change the ultimate Black Swan? Martin Weitzman of Harvard University and co-author of Climate Shock talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the risks of climate change. Weitzman argues that climate change is a fat-tailed phenomenon--there is a non-trivial risk of a catastrophe. Though Weitzman concedes that our knowledge of the climate is quite incomplete, he suggests that it is prudent to take serious measures, including possibly geo-engineering, to reduce the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
James W. Ceaser is the Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976. He is also the director of the Program for Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
What do we owe posterity? We hear a lot about the federal debt that we baby boomers will be leaving our kids and grandkids. But we hear much less from Congress and those running for president about the climate legacy we are leaving our grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren.
The GOP’s months-long debate over when and how to send a repeal of Obamacare to the president’s desk now appears to have an answer. They can’t do it all at once
