Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Basic Macroeconomics

by Mike Kimel Recently I had the opportunity to speak to Professor David Cohen’s class on the US Presidency in the Political Science department at the University of Akron. My talk was structured around three questions involving some extremely simple recent economic history. None of the questions were trick questions. The questions appear below. — […]

Markets and Merchants’ Guilds: Which is the Chicken? Which the Egg?

This post was provoked by a moment of frustrated pique, another in a series of ‘shakes cane at clouds’ moments as this classic New Deal Liberal is driven to craziness by otherwise sensible social liberals who still fetishize markets. And yes I am pointing fingers right at Erza K, Matt Y and Kevin D. But […]

The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 7: 1988 – 2010

by Mike Kimel [UPDATE: Graphic title corrected below. h/t Eric Whitaker] This post is the seventh in a series that looks at the relationship between real economic growth and the top individual marginal tax rate. The first looked at the period from 1901 to 1928, the second from 1929 to 1940, the third from 1940 […]

The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 3: WW2 and the Immediate Post-War Recovery

by Mike Kimel This post is the third in a series that looks at the relationship between real economic growth and the top individual marginal tax rate. The first looked at the period from 1901 to 1928, the second from 1929 to 1940. This one will look at the period from 1940 to 1950. Before […]

No One Else Is Happy with BarryO and Some Random Notes

Economists for Obama suddenly showed up in my RSS reader again. It’s not a pretty sight: I suppose I might change my mind, but after watching the President give in to the Boehner-McConnell blackmail axis, I don’t imagine I’ll be spending much of my time advocating his re-election. Assuming he’s the Democratic nominee, which I […]

Beating The New Republic by Seven Days, or Does Jonathan Cohn Read AB?

Yes, it’s another “AB was right” post. Detractors of this blog in general and me in particular could stop reading now. But they shouldn’t. Anyone who thought through the economics could have pointed out what I did on the 17th: From [Republican Congressman John] Boehner’s site: At least 30 percent of employers would gain economically […]

Time to Change Those Tags? or Economists Catching Up, Round Two

Brad DeLong, not generally a Leading Indicator in such matters, follows Mark Thoma yesterday in looking into the abyss and seeing the outline of a train around the “light”: Henceforth, I will call the current unpleasantness not “The Great Recession,” but rather “The Little Depression.” This still strikes me as optimism, but I’m stil on […]

Post WW2 Private Investment v. New Deal Private Investment

by Mike Kimel Post WW2 Private Investment v. New Deal Private InvestmentCross posted at the Presimetrics blog. I had a post the other day (which appeared at the Presimetrics blog and Angry Bear, and which was followed up by my fellow Angry Bear, Spencer, here) looking at a paper by David R. Henderson about the […]