Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

Interesting Reads:

• Sergio Hernandez: Trump is proposing massive cuts to food stamps. His voters might not like that: "of the top 10 states with the largest percentage of residents who use SNAP, seven voted for Trump in the 2016 elections..." http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-food-stamp-snap-impact-trnd/index.html
• Robert Shiller: Online Data http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm
• Nate Silver: Donald Trump’s Base Is Shrinking: "Trump’s strong approval ratings... from about 29 percent... [to] 21.4 percent of Americans strongly approved of Trump’s performance... somewhat approve... 16 percent... to 17.9 percent... strongly disapprove... from the mid-30s in early February to 44.1 percent... strongly disapprove...exceeds his overall approval rating..." https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trumps-base-is-shrinking/
• Michael Clemens: What the Mariel Boatlift of Cuban Refugees Can Teach Us about the Economics of Immigration: An Explainer and a Revelation: "The Borjas study had a critical flaw that makes the finding spurious... https://www.cgdev.org/blog/what-mariel-boatlift-cuban-refugees-can-teach-us-about-economics-immigration
• Tim Duy: Inflation Isn't Cooperating With the Fed: "Monetary policy makers have three possible responses to the weak inflation data... define down... an acceptable miss... dismiss the numbers as transitory... rethink.... Early indications are that the Fed will pursue some combination of the first two..." https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-18/inflation-isn-t-cooperating-with-the-fed
• Greg Leiserson: Will the Trump administration double-count its magic asterisk?: "What’s even more striking about the anticipated budget plan is the expected assertion that revenue-neutral tax reform will contribute to deficit reduction...." http://equitablegrowth.org/tax-finance/will-the-trump-administration-double-count-its-magic-asterisk/
• Fabio Ghironi (2016): On Straight Jackets vs. Coordination http://faculty.washington.edu/ghiro/GhiroStraightjacketsVsCoordination0716.pdf
• Robert Greenstein: Trump Budget Proposes Path to a New Gilded Age: "Despite the budget’s rhetoric about promoting economic growth—and its growth projections that most economists find highly implausible—it contains a series of proposals that could reduce growth over the long term.  The budget cuts many of the main areas of investment..." http://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/greenstein-trump-budget-proposes-path-to-a-new-gilded-age
• Larry Summers: _Gap between what is widely believed and market evidence | _: "Three facts... in substantial tension with the widespread view that banks are far safer now.... There is distressingly little evidence in favor of the proposition that banks that are measured as better capitalized by their regulators are less likely to fail..." http://larrysummers.com/2017/05/21/atlanta-fed/
• Branko Milanovic: Reducing inequality by deconcentrating capital: "The capital–income ratio continues to rise... increas[ing] interpersonal inequality when... the rate of return to capital outstrips that of income, income from capital is concentrated... and the income source that is less equally distributed is correlated with overall income. This column argues that the third condition is not inevitable..." http://voxeu.org/article/reducing-inequality-deconcentrating-capital
• David Autor et al.: The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms: "Our hypothesis... industry sales will increasingly concentrate... industries where concentration rises most will have the largest declines in the labor share; the fall in the labor share will be driven largely by between-firm reallocation..." https://economics.mit.edu/files/12979
• Isaac Shapiro: The Myth of the Exploding Safety Net: "Recent and future trends in spending on mandatory programs thus don’t justify the cuts the Trump budget proposes..." http://www.cbpp.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-exploding-safety-net-0

And Over Here:

• A Note on Coursera CEO Rick Levin's Clark Kerr Lecture... http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/highlighted-rick-levin-kerr-lecture.html
• Welcome Back to History, America! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/highlighted-welcome-back-to-history-america.html
• A Few Notes on the CUNY "After Piketty" Panel... http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/a-few-notes-on-the-cuny-_after-piketty_-panel.html
• Are Commenters on the Tulipmania Rational?: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Weblogging: Hoisted from the Archives http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/are-commenters-on-the-tulipmania-rational-extraordinary-popular-delusions-and-the-madness-of-crowds-weblogging-hoisted-fro.html
• Will Anybody's Reputation Survive Working for Trump? http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/steve-mnuchin-has-said-that-he-is-going-to-balance-the-budget-with-trumps-tax-cut-for-the-rich-with-a-growth-number-starting.html
• Comment of the Day: Tracy Lightcap: A Note on Coursera CEO Rick Levin's Clark Kerr Lecture...: "I think Thoma's course is indicative of the kinds of courses that succeed on-line..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/comment-of-the-day-tracy-lightcap-_a-note-on-coursera-ceo-rick-levins-clark-kerr-lecture_-i-think-thomas-course.html
• Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: So did he write his book-signing message—and then did some aide hit the roof and beg him to add "and will never forget"?: Betty Cracker: "Trump signs Yad Veshem’s yearbook…: "Trump visited Israel’s Holocaust memorial today. National embarrassment ensued..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/live-from-the-orange-haired-baboon-cage-so-did-he-write-his-book-signing-messageand-then-did-some-aide-hit-the-roof-a.html
• Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: Jonathan Chait: Trump’s Russia Scandal Is Becoming a Corruption Scandal: "The firing of Comey, Kushner reportedly advocated for it..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/live-from-the-orange-haired-baboon-cage-jonathan-chait-_trumps-russia-scandal-is-becoming-a-corruption-scandal_-th.html
• Must-Read: Martin Wolf: Conservatism Buries Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: "Trump... has ended up with “pluto-populism”—policies that benefit plutocrats, justified by populist rhetoric..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/must-read-martin-wolf-_conservatism-buries-ronald-reagan-and-margaret-thatcher_-trump-has-ended-up-with-pluto.html
• Should-Read: Branko Milanovic: Liberation from the Shackles of Space: "A couple of things are worth noticing regarding the second unbundling..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/should-read-branko-milanovic-_liberation-from-the-shackles-of-space_-a-couple-of-things-are-worth-noticing-regarding.html
• Must-Read: Larry Summers: A warning on Trump’s budget: "You cannot use the growth benefits of tax cuts once to justify an optimistic baseline and then again to claim that the tax cuts do not cost revenue..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/must-read-actually-kevin-hassett-made-the-same-large-error-one-of-many-many-very-large-errors-in-his-_dow-36000_-co.html
• Should-Read: James D. Hamilton: Why You Should Never Use the Hodrick-Prescott Filter: "Here's why. (1) The HP filter produces series with spurious dynamic relations that have no basis in the underlying data-generating process..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/why-you-should-never-use-the-hodrick-prescott-filter.html
• Should-Read: Michael Clemens: What the Mariel Boatlift of Cuban Refugees Can Teach Us about the Economics of Immigration: An Explainer and a Revelation: "The Borjas study had a critical flaw that makes the finding spurious..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/should-read-yes-the-invariable-rule-is-that-results-george-borjas-reports-on-immigration-should-be-handled-with-tongs-a.html
• Must-Read: Nicholas Bagley: Taking the Nuclear Option Off the Table: "Last Thursday, fifteen states and the District of Columbia moved to intervene in House v. Price..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/must-read-i-am-now-hopelessly-confused-i-get-that-it-trump-drops-the-appealand-if-states-have-not-intervenedthat.html
• Should-Read: Stan Collender: This Week's Rollout Of Trump 2018 Budget Could Be His Biggest Failure Yet: "There was no Trump speech to... Congress last week at which his budget was featured..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/should-read-stan-collender-_this-weeks-rollout-of-trump-2018-budget-could-be-his-biggest-failure-yet_-there-was-no-t.html
• Should-Read: Dan Drezner: Trump’s first foreign trip is all downhill from here: "This is day two of the trip, and he’s about to do more flying. He’s only going to get crankier and more error-prone from here..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/05/should-read-dan-drezner-_trumps-first-foreign-trip-is-all-downhill-from-here_-this-is-day-two-of-the-trip-and-he.html

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