A Year Ago on Equitable Growth: Twenty Worthy Reads from the Past Week or so: June 14, 2018
Worthy Readings from Equitable Growth:
The development of the ideas that economics—labor economics especially—needs to focus more on power; David Card, Alan Krueger, and Ben Zipperer: [Equitable Growth in Conversation(http://equitablegrowth.org/research-analysis/equitable-growth-in-conversation-an-interview-with-david-card-and-alan-krueger/): Alan Krueger: "I think Orley [Ashenfelter]... set the tone for the Industrial Relations Section... used to like to tell a story, which I remember vividly, where he met with some restaurant group when he worked, I think, at the Labor Department. And they said, we’ve got a problem in our industry: The minimum wage is too low and we can’t get enough workers. And that’s inconsistent with the kind of view that the market determines the wage...Z"
Take a look at global corporate tax avoidance here: Gabriel Zucman, T. Tørsløv, and L. Wier: The Missing Profits of Nations
Kate Bahn: sends us to a guy who used to work here on fire in Twitter about how the Gig Economy is not (at least not yet) a big deal: John Schmitt: @nytimes: 'Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All': Maybe it is regular work (low pay and benefits, insufficient and unpredictable hours, lack of voice on the job, etc.) that is shaping the gig economy?...
Get up to speed on the puzzle of low wage growth going with low unemployment. Much worth reading from Nick Bunker: Nick Bunker: Puzzling over U.S. wage growth: "Hiring has not been particularly strong during this recovery...
Kim Clausing: How will the #TCJA Impact American Workers?: "(1) Overall, the benefits of the #taxcuts are skewed toward the wealthy. (2) When the tax cuts are eventually paid for, the vast majority of American households will be worse off..." https://t.co/1HaOwddUai https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dec5gBJWAAAghdc.jpg
Worthy Readings Elsewhere:
My review of the superb and extremely thought provoking: Richard Baldwin (2016): The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization http://amzn.to/2sIcr6C. Reviewed for Nature http:nature.com: The iron-hulled oceangoing steamships and submarine telegraph cables of the second half of the 19th century set off a first wave of economic globalization. The intercontinental transport of both staple commodities and people became extraordinarily cheap. The container of the second half of the 20th century made the transport of everything non-spoilable--and some things spoilable--essentially free. It set off a second wave of economic globalization...
I am confused here: Do we have an "eastern heartland" problem? Or do we have a "prime age male joblessness" problem? Those two problems would seem to me to call for different kinds of responses. Edward L. Glaeser, Lawrence H. Summers and Ben Austin: A Rescue Plan for a Jobs Crisis in the Heartland: "In Flint, Mich., over 35 percent of prime-aged men—between 25 and 54—are not employed...
How George Borjas p-hacked his way to his conclusion that immigrants have big negative effects on native-worker wages: Jennifer Hunt and Michael Clemens: Refugees have little effect on native worker wages: "Card (1990) found that a large inflow of Cubans to Miami in 1980 did not affect native wages or unemployment...
Larry plumps for nominal GDP targeting: Lawrence Summers: Why the Fed needs a new monetary policy framework: "A monetary framework... should... [have] enough room to respond to a recession... nominal interest rates in the range of 5 percent in normal times...
Would faster productivity growth raise wage growth? That is, would other things stay not equal but at least not become more adverse? Probably: Anna Stansbury and Lawrence H. Summer: Productivity and Pay: Is the Link Broken?: "Since 1973 median compensation in the United States has diverged starkly from average labor productivity...
Joe Gagnon is right here: Listen to him: Joseph Gagnon: There Is No Inflation Puzzle: "Inflation is behaving exactly as the Phillips curve would predict...
So you think you want to become an economist..." Masayuki Kudamatsu: tips4economists
The parallels between the Great Recession and the Great Depression remain a very fruitful area to think about: Noah Smith: "How many parallels can we think of? Interestingly, it's the very existence of all those parallels that lets us see how differently the 21st century is unfolding, compared to the 20th. We staved off the worst of the Great Recession. But this time, unlike before, we elected a xenophobic authoritarian President. What would 20th century American history had looked like if we had gone off the gold standard early, but then elected Lindbergh instead of Roosevelt? Maybe we're about to find out!..."
Opposition to Medicaid expansion was one of the cruelest deeds of reactionaries in the 2000s: Ralph Northam: "As a doctor, I believe ensuring all Virginians have access to the care they need is a moral and economic imperative. This budget expands Medicaid and will empower nearly 400,000 Virginians with access to health insurance, without crowding out other spending priorities..."
Long-run changes in the nature of work and jobs happen, but they happen in the long run. In the short run in which we live, low-pressure and high-pressure economies dominate. Why do people find this surprising?: Larry Mishel: "One reporter told me there’s quite a ‘furor’ over the new BLS Contingent worker data. Not sure why that should be, except if you bought the hype about a rapidly changing nature of work and an explosion of freelancing and gig work. @EconomicPolicy..."
I still have a hard time believing the U.S. is launching a trade war that no domestic interest group wants: Barry Eichengreen, Sean Randolph, and Jonathan R. Visbal: A War of Trade? Protectionist Policies Under Trump: "1,300 Chinese products... a 25% tariff... over $46 billion worth of goods. In response, China produced its own list...
Yes, Europe may well be facing another crisis: Olivier Blanchard, Silvia Merler, and Jeromin Zettelmeyer: How Worried Should We Be about an Italian Debt Crisis?: "Two conditions... that rising interest rates reflected economic recovery; and... that the Italian government would be prepared to cooperate with European authorities... no longer hold...
If you believe Robert Barro and his posse, we ought to be seeing annual-rate investment spending suddenly and discontinuously leaping upward by $800 billion this year. We are not: Pedro Nicolaci da Costa: Tax cuts fail to boost corporate investment plans, Fed survey shows: "Trump claimed the tax bill would lead to a huge boost in business spending—but there's no sign of it yet...
A very interesting study of what appears to be highly successful job search assistance in Nevada: Day Manoli, Marios Michaelides, and Ankur Patel: Long-Term Effects of Job-Search Assistance: Experimental Evidence Using Administrative Tax Data: "Administrative tax data... examine the long-term effects of an experimental job-search assistance program operating in Nevada in 2009...
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is only one of many organizations that took Paul Ryan at the estimation of his communications staff. We have a significantly less responsible federal budget as a consequence: Michael Grunwalde: Paul Ryan's Legacy of Red Ink: "The speaker of the House’s reputation as a budget hawk has somehow survived his actual record...
#noted
#weblogs
#worthy
