I haven’t beaten the drum lately for Lane Kenworthy — perhaps the best researcher out there on the economic effects of income and wealth distribution. His years of careful, diligent (and voluminous) statistical and analytic work, tapping the best data sets available, and his cogent, coherent explanations of his findings, should get a lot more attention […]
In case anyone is interested, I put together a lot of stuff I have been doing with inflation expectations into a soft of manuscript here (warning 19 poorly written pages) The conclusions Inflation expectations are not anchored. A simple regression model fits both the median Livingston Survey respondent’s expected CPI inflation and five year TIPS […]
Mike Konczal explains that Ted Cruz’s claim that the current situation is similar to the 70s is utterly insane. He wrote a brilliant article do click and read. I was sent there from a fun post by Steve Benen following angry bear Mike Kimel, stealing candy from babies and correcting Rand Paul’s arithmetic. However, he […]
It is happening as I feared. Hilary Russ writes… Private money, public projects: More U.S. states doing deals. The movement has started for private funds to own public infrastructure. This is the entrenchment of inequality, which will be very hard to reverse. So why do I fear private ownership of public infrastructure? From what I […]
The American Legislative Exchange Council — which authors ultra-conservative legislation and promulgates it to state legislatures nationwide — has a little index measure of states’ “competitiveness,” which supposedly results in greater prosperity for those states that rank highly. Does it? Let’s let the numbers speak for themselves: Source (PDF). Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Yesterday, I noted that an expectations un-augmented Phillips curve fits data from the past two decades rather well. Here is an even simpler illustration of the point that lagged price inflation has not correlated with wage inflation for the past two decades. The figure is a scatter of lgwinfl — the percent annual rate of […]
Yesterday I wrote that causing a recession to correct policy mistakes would reflect the medical wisdom of re-breaking a bone in order to set it correctly. Yes, there is pain in re-breaking a bone. Yes, the patient screams. But the patient is better off in the long-run. I said people would think I was […]
The quotes in this post’s subject line are very much intended as a double entendre. I’m of course referring to the title of Piketty’s book (which I’ve read about 80% of, jumping around). But even more, I’m talking about his definition of “capital.” I’ve ranted frequently about economists’ failure to define this term or agree on […]
If the president is to be taken seriously, it’s time for him to make campaign finance a centerpiece of the upcoming campaign. Despite appearances, serious reform remains possible within the new limits set out by the Roberts court. Obama should take full advantage of the chief justice’s explicit recognition that the “appearance of corruption” serves […]
Pretty good company to be in! Friday round-up The Court’s decision on Wednesday in McCutcheon v. FEC, striking down the aggregate limits on contributions to political parties, political action committees, and candidates for federal office, continues to dominate coverage of, and commentary on, the Court. Yesterday this blog kicked off its symposium on the decision […]