News
Pew Research | U.S.-China Relations: Key Data Points from Pew Research
American public opinion has shifted in favor of getting tougher with China when it comes to economic and trade policy.
Bloomberg | Moody’s Cuts Chicago Rating Amid Crime, Pension Liability
Mounting pension liabilities have cost Chicago another cut in its credit standing as Moody’s Investors Service reduced the general-obligation debt rating for the nation’s third-largest city by three steps to A3, citing a $36 billion retirement-fund deficit and “unrelenting public safety demands” on the budget.
CNN Money | Falling oil prices could spark global turmoil
Falling oil prices can have a lot of benefits. They put money into consumers' pockets. They cut trade deficits. They make it cheaper for businesses to sell stuff.
Bloomberg | Consumer Comfort in U.S. Declines After Reaching Five-Year High
Consumer sentiment declined last week from a five-year high as Americans grew more pessimistic about the prospects for the world’s largest economy.
WSJ | Strong Earnings, Buyback Plans Boost Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings Thursday despite a volatile interest-rate environment, and surprised investors by announcing plans to repurchase its stock for the first time since the financial crisis.
Econ Comments & Analysis
AEI | FHA Watch, July 2013 (Vol. 2, No. 7)
Earlier this month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), along with subcommittee chairs Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), unveiled the Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners (PATH) Act of 2013. Title II encompasses the most significant and common-sense Federal Housing Administration (FHA) reform legislation in memory.
WSJ | Welcome to the Global Middle-Class Surge
The mass uprisings this summer in Egypt, Turkey and Brazil are powerful reminders that the middle classes drive history. What remains unclear, however, is where they are driving it.
AEI | This is not Thomas Jefferson's economy
The U.S. economy bears little resemblance to the Jeffersonian ideal populists on both left and right sometimes appear to strive towards: a nation of small businesses owned by Midwestern families, ideally headed by yeoman farmers. This has all kinds of implications.
Blogs
WSJ | Americans Split on Capitalism’s Success
That’s one finding from a report released Thursday by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution that studied how Americans feel about faith, values and the economy.
Library of Economics | Gintis on the Evolution of Private Property
Herb Gintis' "The Evolution of Private Property" (Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2007) is one of the most fascinating articles I've read in years. (ungated draft) I'm slightly jealous because I've planned to write a similar piece for a decade, but Gintis did a much better job than I would have done.
Neighborhood Effects | The Economics of Regulation Part 1: A New Study Shows That Regulatory Accumulation Hurts the Economy
In June, John Dawson and John Seater, economists at Appalachian State University and North Carolina State University, respectively, published a potentially important study (ungated version here) in the Journal of Economic Growth that shows the effects of regulatory accumulation on the US economy.
