News
Market Watch | Bernanke:Economists should focus on well-being
Economists should find better ways to measure the life satisfaction of citizens, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.
WSJ | European Consumers Tighten Their Belts
As countries across Europe slash their budgets to tackle the sovereign-debt crisis, individual Europeans are reining in spending, too. They are trading down to cheaper groceries, buying fewer big-ticket items, and searching more for bargains online.
Market Watch | The less productive U.S. economy
After a brief pick-up due to “overfiring,” the trend in productivity is heading in one direction: down.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Politico | Stop rigging system against small business
I stood before a group of voters in Massachusetts last year and talked about what it would take to move forward as a nation. I laid out how we all needed to invest in our country, to build a strong foundation for our families today and make sure the next kid with the great idea has the chance to succeed.
Market Watch | Shilling: New recession has begun
After a rocky spring, we’ve had two consecutive months of gains in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
AEI | Capitalism (It's not a dirty word)
Everything else the government does inherently restricts economic freedom to act in pursuit of earned success. I am a libertarian and think that almost none of those restrictions are justified. But accepting the case for capitalism doesn’t require you to be a libertarian.
Washingotn Times | Regulatory tidal wave is swamping small business
The U.S. economy is teetering between progress and regression. As businesses work to overcome staggering odds, many of which are imposed by Washington, each step forward seems to be met by two in the opposite direction.
Washington Post | The social and economic reasons for Generation Squeezed
I worry about the future — not mine but that of my three children, all in their 20s. It is an axiom of American folklore that every generation should live better than its predecessors.
Bloomberg | Bernanke Says Economic Data May Mask Individual Suffering
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said gauges of the U.S. economy’s strength may fail to measure the suffering of individual citizens.
Blogs
Economist | The end of deep development
It is amazing how quickly prevailing views of the challenge of economic development have changed. As recently as the 1990s, catch-up economic growth was widely seen as really difficult to achieve, at least on any sustained basis.
Library of Economics | Spending, Comparative Advantage, and Unemployment
Idle unemployment is a problem in societies that are highly productive but very unequal. Here basic goods (food, clothing) can be produced efficiently by the wealthy via capital-intensive production processes.
Reason Foundation | Picking Apart Krugman's Ridiculous Housing Op-Ed
Today's post "Debt, Depression, DeMarco" is so ridiculous that I can't just go on. So I'm going to break down all of the manipulations and inaccuracies point by point, for my own mental relief if anything else. I will include every line of his post so nothing is taken out of context.
Calculated Risk | Gasoline Prices up 20 cents over last 5 weeks
The following graph shows the recent increase in gasoline prices. Gasoline prices are down from the peak in early April, but up about 20 cents over the last five weeks.
Library of Economics | Getting Rich in America
Sometimes, when the person beside me on an airplane finds out that I'm an economist, he/she will ask, "What's going to happen to the economy?" I answer, "I don't know." If the person is somewhat more sophisticated, he will ask "What's going to happen to interest rates?" I used to answer, "I don't know." I now answer: "They'll fluctuate."
Economist | Japan's tragedy, cont.
Over longer periods of time, exchange rates should adjust to equalise the cost, across markets, of traded goods. I'm suggesting, rather, that the unusual behaviour of exchange rates during the recent crisis has distorted recent measures of nominal GDP per capita, and that it's therefore very misleading to take as one's reference point (as Mr Smith does), the 2011 value of Japanese GDP per capita.
