News
Bloomberg | Euro-Area Economic Confidence Jumps to Highest in 15 Months
Economic confidence in the euro area improved for a third month in July, reaching the highest in 15 months and adding to indications the 17-nation currency bloc is emerging from a record-long recession.
CNN Money | Home prices keep soaring
Home prices continued to gain steam in May according to a closely-watched reading, even as mortgage rates climbed.
Bloomberg | Consumer Confidence Index in U.S. Fell to 80.3 in July
Confidence among U.S. consumers declined more than forecast in July after reaching a five-year high a month earlier as Americans grew more pessimistic about the outlook for the economy and employment.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Politico | Reform the ethanol mandate
The federal corn ethanol mandate is prima facie evidence that the law of unintended consequences is always in effect.
Businessweek | The Whole World Is Getting Richer, and That's Good News
This month the most accurate source for global data on the size of the world’s economies got a makeover. As a result, we have measures of economic growth and relative income across countries that are better than ever. These numbers suggest something surprising: a world of ubiquitously increasing wealth, where predictions of Malthusian traps and permanent poverty look increasingly archaic.
Fortune | Why the housing market could grow even if the economy slows
Home prices across America's 20 major cities in May climbed 12.2% higher from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index, a widely watched gauge of the health of the U.S. housing market. This number was higher than most expected and the biggest annual gain since March 2006.
Mercatus | Regulatory Process, Regulatory Reform, and the Quality of Regulatory Impact Analysis
Regulatory impact analysis (RIA) has become a key element of the regulatory process in developed and developing nations alike. A thorough RIA identifies the potential market failure or other systemic problem a regulation is intended to solve, develops a variety of alternative solutions, and assesses the benefits and costs of those alternatives.
Heritage Foundation | A Guide to Understanding International Comparisons of Economic Mobility
International comparisons of economic mobility can be very helpful both in understanding patterns in one’s own country and in assessing social conditions and policy impacts, but they can also be misleading when used to rank mobility or economic opportunity in various countries.
Blogs
WSJ | A Look at Case-Shiller by Metro Area
Home prices extended a winning streak of year-over-year gains and two cities surpassed their prefinancial crisis peaks, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes.
