A lesson for students learning to write papers: Don't needlessly annoy readers before you get to your point. If a reader disagrees, finds something wrong, or insufficiently documented, of if you offend a reader, he or she will leave without getting to the main point.
For most of the past 35 years, China’s policymakers have set their focus on the domestic economy, with reforms designed to allow the market to provide efficiency and accurate price signals. Though they had to be increasingly aware of their country’s growing impact on the global economy, they had no strategy to ensure that China’s neighbors gained from its economic transformation.
Almost all rural infrastructure is subsidized, from railroads to highways to telephone and Internet service to airline service to water projects to electricity projects. And that's just the start.
On June 15, Members of Knesset Dr. Anat Berko and Dr. Michael Oren hosted a forum—attended by fellow Knesset members, staffers, scholars, and NGO representatives—on the struggle against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS).
Timothy Noah from Politico called yesterday to ask if I thought four percent growth for a decade is possible. Story here. In particular he asked me if I agreed with other economists, later identified in the story, who commented that it has never happened in the US so presumably it is impossible.
Political debates matter. They can alter the course of a campaign, propel a candidate or an idea, and provide voters an unfiltered window into how potential leaders handle tough situations. For the last six months, there has been a significant conversation over the state of the general election presidential debates and the role that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) plays in maintaining the two-party duopoly that is so fiercely protected by the Republican and Democratic parties.
The Senate's rejection of President Woodrow Wilson's commitment of the United States to the League of Nations was the greatest setback to U.S. global leadership of the last century.
It isn't every day that Iranian spies try to recruit you, so it's a special edition of Rational Security, one in which a front group for the Iranian intelligence services make a play for Shane Harris.
by Allan H. Meltzervia e21, Economic Policies for the 21st Century
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Quantitative easing (QE) is the latest central bank fad. After years of QE by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of China and the European Central Bank have adopted their versions of the policy. The immediate effect was a depreciation of each exchange rate and an increase in some measures of monetary growth. I will discuss the US experience and ECB problems here.
Whole Foods has introduced a rating system for produce and flowers, “Responsibly Grown,” which is based on a number of factors. It has enraged organic farmers, who think that the designation “organic” automatically entitles them to superior ratings. They’re wrong.
One of the most influential and most cited books in social science in the past 50 years is economist Albert Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Hirschman’s book discusses how individuals respond to a situation in which the services on which they rely are deteriorating. As such, Exit provides valuable conceptual tools for analyzing the design of the Common Core national curriculum content standards.
It could have been President Barack Obama issuing a firm warning — measured, devoid of bellicose threats — to Vladimir Putin that the West would keep the pressure on as long as Russia interfered with Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Western Europeans see immigration as a threat, aided and imbedded by the power of visual image, according to Stanford University Senior Fellow Dennis Bark.
After spending more than $1 billion on startup costs, California’s state-run Obamacare health insurance exchange has failed to produce the expected returns and is rapidly running out of money.
