News
Market Watch | Case-Shiller: Home prices fall in January
U.S. home prices fell for the fifth month in a row in January to the lowest level since early 2003, according to a closely followed index.
CNN Money | Congress ready to tackle postal reform
The Senate could start debating a bipartisan bill that offers buyouts to senior employees, cuts worker compensation benefits and makes it possible to end Saturday service in two years.
Bloomberg | China’s Industrial Company Profits Fall 5.2% on Exports
Net income dropped 5.2 percent from a year earlier to 606 billion yuan ($96 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website today. That compared with a 34.3 percent gain in the first two months of 2011.
Market Watch | Euro-zone needs 1 trilllion euro firewall: OECD
Euro-zone finance ministers meeting at the end of this week need to boost the firepower of the region's rescue funds to at least 1 trillion euros ($1.34 trillion) in order to restore market confidence, Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Tuesday.
Politico | Highway bill: House GOP delays vote
House Republican plans to pass a three-month extension of the surface transportation law fell apart Monday as it became clear that the leadership didn't have the votes to move the bill.
Econ Comments & Analysis
FOX Business | OECD: Eurozone Not Out of the Woods Yet
The euro zone's public debt crisis is not over despite calmer financial markets this year, the OECD said on Tuesday, with a warning that the bloc's banks remain weak, debt levels are still rising and fiscal targets are far from assured.
WSJ | Monti Pulls a Thatcher
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has walked away from negotiations with Italy's labor unions and announced that he is going to move ahead with reforming the country's notorious employment laws—with or without union consent. If Rome is spared the fate that recently befell Athens, mark this as the week the turnaround began.
Washington Times | No more GOP whining about overregulation
The Supreme Court last week ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a unanimous decision. The EPA had charged a couple with violating the Clean Water Act. It claimed their property was a “wetland” and said it would fine them up to $75,000 per day - but there was no water on the property and there had been no judicial review of the charge.
NBER | Why are Some Regions More Innovative than Others? The Role of Firm Size Diversity
Large labs may spawn spin-outs caused by innovations deemed unrelated to the firm's overall business. Small labs generate demand for specialized services that lower entry costs for others. We develop a theoretical framework to study the interplay of these two localized externalities and their impact on regional innovation.
