In its recent Going for Growth report, the OECD concludes that the economic and financial crisis will leave an unwelcome legacy: a permanent reduction in economic activity. This loss averages about 3% of potential GDP across the 20 member countries for which the OECD was able to make these estimates. As the following chart shows, those [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The Legacy of the Economic Crisis
Posted in International, Macroeconomics, Uncategorized, tagged GDP, International, Macroeconomics, unemployment on March 14, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Budget Thoughts from Steny Hoyer
Posted in Budget, Uncategorized, tagged Budget, Debt, Deficit on March 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is building a reputation as one of our most thoughtful leaders when it comes to budget matters. Thus I commend to you the speech on fiscal responsibility he gave at the Brookings Institution today. Highlights include his criticism of “selfish” budget choices: [W]hen it comes to budgeting, what is politically [...]
The Tragedy of the Guacamole
Posted in Life, Microeconomics, Uncategorized, tagged Microeconomics, Property, Tragedy of the Commons on February 28, 2010 | 4 Comments »
One of the themes of this blog is that economics is everywhere in daily life. Property rights, for example, are at the heart of everyday battles over overhead bins, shoveled-out parking spaces, and food in shared refrigerators. Continuing in that vein, a friend recently sent me a link to an amusing piece about sharing guacamole. [...]
How Governments Hide Their Liabilities
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Accounting, Budget, Debt, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Greece on February 14, 2010 | 10 Comments »
In my testimony to the Senate Budget Committee the other day, I recommended that Congress set specific fiscal targets for bringing our out-of-control deficits and debt under control. My particular suggestion? Get the publicly-held debt down to 60% of GDP in 2020. By budgeting standards, that makes for a great bumper sticker: “60 in 20“. [...]
Philanthropy and Innovation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Philanthropy on January 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier today, Bill Gates released his second annual letter as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The letter is well worth your time, particularly if you are interested in efforts to improve education and global health. One passage that caught my eye was his description of the foundation’s strategy: Melinda and I see [...]
The Great Eggo Shortage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Microeconomics on November 18, 2009 | 11 Comments »
Today’s microeconomics question, brought to you by the fine people at Kellogg’s: How will Americans respond to the great Eggo shortage? According to CNN Money.com (ht Michelle): Grocery stores will be experiencing a shortage of the waffles until mid-2010 due to problems at two bakeries, a Kellogg’s spokeswoman said on Wednesday. Flooding at an Atlanta [...]
Bill Belichick and John Maynard Keynes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Sports on November 16, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for the reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally. –John Maynard Keynes Keynes’ insight has a natural corollary, which Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, learned painfully on Sunday: to fail unconventionally is really, really bad for your reputation. As described by Steve Levitt over at [...]
Climate Change vs. Deficit Reduction?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Budget, Climate Change on November 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Next February, President Obama will unveil his 2011 budget. Over the past few days, the news media have begun to speculate about some of the steps that he might propose in order to tame our growing deficits. Over at Politico, Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei suggest that one policy casualty ought to be the effort to combat climate change: The [...]
The Warped Economics of Carry-On Luggage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Airlines, Incentives, Tragedy of the Commons on October 23, 2009 | 26 Comments »
I just got home from a quick trip to Denver, where I spoke at a Concord Coalition event on our nation’s dire fiscal outlook. That’s a big, complex problem, but today I’d like to share some thoughts on an even more vexing problem: the warped economics of carry-on luggage. As you probably know, most major [...]
Andrew Samwick’s Good Point About Health Insurance
Posted in Budget, Health, Uncategorized, tagged Budget, Health on October 1, 2009 | 8 Comments »
In a recent post over at Capital Gains and Games, Andrew Samwick makes an important point about the debate over health insurance reform. As Andrew notes, many proponents of a public plan (aka public option aka government-run plan) blame the quest for profits for the ills they see in the private health insurance market. This is [...]
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