News
FOX Business | U.S. Mortgage Applications Fell Last Week -MBA
Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week on lower refinancing demand, an industry group said on Wednesday.
Market Watch | Factory orders rise 1.6% in February
Orders for goods produced in U.S. factories rose 1.6 % in February, the U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday.
Bloomberg | Euro-Area Economic Growth Revised Down to 0.2% in Fourth Quarter
The euro-area economy grew at a slower pace in the fourth quarter than initially estimated, providing further evidence for the European Central Bank assessment that the currency bloc’s recovery is still fragile.
WSJ | Apartment Rents Climb as Vacancies Drop
Apartment landlords continued to push through hefty rent increases at the start of the year, although the pace of the rises was slightly weaker.
WSJ | Oil Boomtown Williston, N.D., Looks for a Stable Future
This oil boomtown, known for its brawling roughnecks and their spare living conditions, is starting to smooth off its rough edges. But not all of them.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Ayn Rand Was Right About Unions: Workers Need Unequal Bargaining
The granddaddy of all their tricks, their one key sophistry, is the equation of economic power with political power. The power to produce is covertly lumped in with the power to destroy. The dollar is treated as a gun.
Fortune | Hold on to your hard hats: A capital spending boom may be coming
The most powerful tonic for the flagging U.S. economy would be a surge in capital investment. The willingness of manufacturers of semiconductors and chemicals to expand their fabs and factories, and airlines and utilities to order jets and build grids that will take many years, and a growing, prosperous base of customers, to render them profitable, would signal that a long, strong stretch of growth will follow.
Fortune | How to reform Ukraine's economy
The International Monetary Fund recently agreed to help the debt-stressed country with up to an $18 billion loan, but it can't do it alone.
AEI | Is the US economy unable to grow as fast as it used to? If so, maybe this is why
The American economy has grown by 3.3% annually, on average, since 1950. To break it down: real GDP grew by 3.6% in the 1950s, 4.3% in the 1960s, 3.2% in the 1970s, 3.3% in the 1980s, and 3.5% in the 1990s. Since 2000, however, things have slowed markedly. RGDP growth has averaged just 1.8% through 2013, 2.6% in the 2001-2006 period and 1.1% in the 2007-2103 period.
Heritage Foundation | The Financial Stability Oversight Council: Helping to Enshrine “Too Big to Fail”
History shows that more regulation does not inherently prevent financial panics and crises. Yet the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act essentially provides more of the same old financial regulation.
Blogs
Fortune | BMW bets big on South Carolina
The German automaker is investing $1 billion in its factory in Spartanburg, and it will become BMW's biggest manufacturing facility.
Library of Economics | Nudging consumers and regulators
Today a new paper has been released, by the newly established Regulatory Conduct Authority (RCA). The RCA shall implement the same basic insights of behavioral economics, to the very field of regulation.
