The biggest thing in economics today is Paul Krugman’s “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” in the New York Times Magazine. If you have any interest in macroeconomic policy, you should read it. For one thing, the illustrations by Jason Lutes are quite entertaining: More important, though, is Paul’s evaluation of how we economists missed [...]
Archive for September, 2009
Why Economists Messed Up
Posted in Economy, tagged Economics, Keynes, Krugman, Macroeconomics on September 6, 2009 | 10 Comments »
Unemployment Still Rising
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Economy, jobs, Minimum Wage, unem, Wages on September 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Today’s jobs report didn’t deliver any real surprises. The number of payroll jobs fell by 216,000 in August, slightly less than expectations, but revisions to earlier months subtracted an additional 49,000 jobs. The unemployment rate rose to 9.7%, more than expected and consistent with the consensus view that unemployment will exceed 10% in coming months. [...]
Tracking the Stimulus: Update
Posted in Budget, Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Budget, Data, Macro, Stimulus on September 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Good news: The Recovery.gov website now includes information about the tax components of the stimulus, not just the spending components: According to the chart, an estimated $62.5 billion made its way out the door in tax reductions through the end of August. The corresponding spending data indicate that $88.8 billion in federal spending made its [...]
Bending the Curve: Redefining Health Insurance
Posted in Health, Politics, Regulation, tagged Brookings, Health, Insurance, Politics, Regulation on September 3, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Over the past few months, a politically-diverse group of health policy experts has been pondering a key question: what are the “specific, feasible steps” that policymakers could use to reduce the growth of health spending? In short, how can we bend the curve? The fruits of their labor were published by the Brookings Institution on [...]
Another Look at Oil and Natural Gas Prices
Posted in Energy, Environment, tagged Energy, Natural Gas, Oil on September 2, 2009 | 6 Comments »
A couple weeks ago, I discussed the remarkable divergence between the prices of oil and natural gas. At the time, the spot price of West Texas Intermediate was above $73 per barrel, while the spot price of natural gas at the Henry Hub was about $3 per MMBtu. The ratio of the two prices was [...]
Dodging the Resource Curse
Posted in Economy, Energy, tagged Norway, Oil, Resource Curse on September 1, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Over the weekend, the Financial Times had a fascinating piece about Farouk al-Kasim, an Iraqi who is credited with saving Norway from the resource curse: Poor countries dream of finding oil like poor people fantasise about winning the lottery. But the dream often turns into a nightmare as new oil exporters realise that their treasure [...]
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