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

The Dangerous Logic of the Steady-State Fisher Effect

Noah Smith brought up the issue of the long run Fisher effect. Yet, he wants to see micro-foundation models. “Specifically, what I’d be interested to see is for someone to find some micro-foundations for the Neo-Fisherite result that don’t depend on fiscal policy reaction functions.” He found a paper written by Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé and Martín […]

Capital in the 21st Century Discussion at The Graduate Center, CUNY

Last week there was an 1.5 hr discussion with the following participants:  Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University), Paul Krugman (Princeton University), and Steven Durlauf (University of Wisconsin–Madison) participated in a panel moderated by LIS Senior Scholar Branko Milanovic. The Center just posted it yesterday on their youtube channel.

2 Snippets to watch… World Trade & Productivity

World Trade weakens in Early 2014, Wall Street Journal: Weakening world trade is something to watch according to Michael Pettis. “… redistributing income downwards is easier said than done in a globalized world, especially one in which countries are competing to drive down wages. The first major economy to attempt to redistribute income will certainly […]

Speeding toward inequality

If you were a passenger in a car speeding toward a cliff, you would scream at the lunatic driver to steer away or slow down. The car is our economy. The cliff is inequality. Inequality is a disaster for society. Who is driving the car? A combination of government policies and business institutions are steering […]

Are Markets Better Described as Robust than Efficient?

by J Tzimeskes   Are Markets Better Described as Robust than Efficient? Something that I think all of us with private sector jobs experience in our day to day lives is just how incompetent a large number of private businesses are. These may be our customers, suppliers, or another division. Yet, somehow, these businesses thrive despite […]

Reader comments on monetary policy and inequality

I posted a question to our readers… How should monetary policy change if reducing inequality was seen as the most important priority? An assessment of the comments… The real issue of monetary policy’s effect on inequality its purpose to generate a “wealth effect” which will increase spending. A few things were said about the wealth […]