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

Researcher at San Francisco Fed warns of Excessive Easy Monetary Policy

Today we see an article, Betting the house: Monetary policy, mortgage booms and housing prices by Oscar Jorda, Moritz Schularick, Alan Taylor. They warn of excessive easy monetary policies. Their research uses a large data set. “In our new paper (Jordà et al. 2014), we analyse the link between monetary conditions, mortgage credit growth, and […]

Clinton-Becerra 2016

I am not going to say nobody ever thought of this pairing, but a quick trip around the Google-sphere got me a paucity of results. So I am going to stake my claim here. Why Becerra? (Or for some Becerra who?) Chicano. California. Ambitious. Young. CPC (Congressional Progressive Caucus). The guy ticks off so many […]

Health news

I’m not sure if there are studies looking at the long term effects of such advice on one’s health especially in this economy, but I can see where in the words of Arlo Guthrie, it could create a movement. Health Experts Recommend Standing up at Desk, Leaving Office and Never Coming Back ROCHESTER, MN—In an […]

Third Way trade agreements study leaves out a lot

Third Way (h/t TPM), a Democratic pro-trade think tank, has released a new study, “Are Modern Trade Deals Working?” It examines the various “free trade” deals the U.S. has signed since 2000 to conclude that 13 of 17 have led to an improvement in our goods (not including services; see more below) trade balance with […]

Fishing with Anti-Malaria nets

At the NY Times Jeffrey Gettleman reports that people are using anti-malaria nets to fish (via Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice). After reading the headline but not the article (not wanting to be discouraged) I thought the problem was just that the pesticide treated nets were not being used to protect the people from malaria. […]

The Taper Tantrum

I am marking my beliefs to market as Brad DeLong does from time to time. One of my old beliefs whose market quotation has declined is extreme skepticism about the effectivenss of US monetary policy at the zero lower bound. This skepticism was largely caused by what I perceived to be the weak effects of […]

New Milestone: Majority of Public School Students Now Considered Low-Income

Via Southern Education Foundation: Students are eligible for free meals if they live in households with no more than 135 percent of the poverty level, and they qualify for reduced-price meals if household income is no more than 185 percent of the poverty level. In 2013, the federal poverty threshold was $23,550 for a family […]

US 76, EU 6

No, it’s not a sports score. It’s the number of $100 million incentive packages offered in each place beginning in 2010. This is based on my first paper to use the February 2015 update of Good Jobs First’s Megadeals database (you can download the entire update in spreadsheet form). I’ve said before that U.S. investment […]

To fix or not to fix: Jeffry Frieden’s “Currency Politics”

by Joseph Joyce To fix or not to fix: Jeffry Frieden’s “Currency Politics” The decision by the Swiss National Bank to abandon its peg to the euro serves as an example of the relatively limited life spans of fixed exchange rate regimes. While the fragility of exchange rate commitments has been known since the publication […]