News
WSJ | Footnote to Financial Crisis: More People Shun the Bank
The Russell family of Kirkland, Wash., makes about $230,000 with Charles Russell, 43 years old, working as a systems analyst for Microsoft Corp. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, that puts them among the top 5% of American households.
Market Watch | Small-business index climbs in August, NFIB says
Small-business optimism rose in August as owners become more optimistic on the economy and future sales and increased their plans to hire, according to an index released Tuesday.
WSJ | Trade Deficit Widens as Exports to Europe Fall
U.S. exports fell in July after rising earlier in the summer, adding to concerns that troubles in Europe and elsewhere are slowing the U.S. economy.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Why Markets Need 'Naked' Credit Default Swaps
Many regulators, politicians and academics consider credit default swaps to be insurance contracts. These folks then use the insurable-interest rule—which limits life-insurance claims to individuals adversely affected by the death of the insured—to recommend banning "naked" CDS purchases, that is, buying sovereign credit default swaps without holding the underlying sovereign bond.
AEI | Three tough choices: The Fed, the euro and the US
With the FOMC meeting Wednesday and Thursday, European leaders parsing the details of new rescue packages, and Moody's threatening to downgrade the U.S.' credit rating, AEI economists offer their thoughts on the difficult choices facing policy makers.
WSJ | Speech of the Year
While Americans were listening to the bloviators in Tampa and Charlotte, the speech of the year was delivered at the Federal Reserve's annual policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on August 31. And not by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The orator of note was a regulator from the Bank of England, and his subject was "The dog and the frisbee."
NBER | Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program and Ozone Reductions
Willingness to pay for air quality is a function of health and the costly defensive investments that contribute to health, but there is little research assessing the empirical importance of defensive investments. The setting for this paper is a large US emissions cap and trade market – the NOx Budget Trading Program (NBP) – that has greatly reduced NOx emissions since its initiation in 2003.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | Freeloaders on Safety Net Programs Double Dip to Get Thousands in Taxpayer Dollars
In July, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report showing that, as many Americans suspect, there are places where government safety net programs are abused and ripe for reform.
Café Hayek | Nosek on the elusiveness of truth
Truth in the social sciences (and elsewhere) is elusive. This week’s EconTalk is a conversation with Brian Nosek on the conflict between truth and professional incentives that exists in university life, particularly in the social sciences.
Neighborhood Effects | Government Failure and Market Failure
Chicago school economists are often maligned for their supposed blind faith in markets. And it is true that some of the theories associated with Chicago have a certain Panglossian feel to them; they give the impression that markets everywhere and always yield the best possible results.
AEI | Does this look like an economy that’s moving forward? 9 reasons why it really doesn’t
I would like to believe the U.S. economy is firmly back on track and headed toward renewed prosperity. A slow track, to be sure, but at least things are moving forward. That would be something, at least.
National Review | A Reminder of How Bad the Farm Bill Is
Mix cronyism and dependency and you get this gigantic farm bill. As such, lawmakers should be careful what they wish for when they call for its adoption–and so should the American people.
AEI | Cronyism and concrete: Big cracks developing in China’s infrastructure build out
On a visit to China last year, I remember chatting with an environmentalist, an American, who bemoaned how democracy got in the way of a bigger clean-energy push in the United States. The dictators of Beijing, she said approvingly, knew how to get big things done.
