Morning Coffee Videocast: International Issues
In which I drink my morning coffee, hog bandwidth, and talk briefly about the three most important long-run issues in international economics...
Morning Coffee Videocast: International Issues
Alan Blinder on Outsourcing: Summary: Economists who insist that "offshore outsourcing" is just a routine extension of international trade are overlooking how major a transformation it will likely bring -- and how significant the consequences could be. The governments and societies of the developed world must start preparing, and fast...
Alan Krueger on Immigration: Immigration policy involves fundamental issues about what and who we are as a country. There are no simple answers on immigration policy because different people can legitimately assign different weights to the welfare of new immigrants, recent immigrants, and various groups of natives. In addition, there is considerable debate disagreement among economists about the economic impacts of immigration....
Brad Setser on Barry Eichengreen on global imbalances: Eichengreen provides the best summary I have seen of competing views on the sustainability of large US trade deficits, along with the impact of sustained trade deficts on US external debt and the investment income balance. He leans towards what he calls the standard view: what cannot go on forever, won't go on forever. But he also clearly explains competing views, whether the "New Economy and Higher productivity make it all OK" view of Richard Cooper (and Michael Mandel), the "Savvy investor" view of John Kitchen (Cavallo and Tille have a similar argument) or the US isn't really in debt because of dark matter view of Hausmann and Sturzenegger and their various acolytes in the investment world. Well worth reading.
