@sandymaxey points me to a new report from the North Carolina Justice Center that is making my head spin. Picking Losers shows that the state’s flagship development program, the Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG), has seen 62 of its 102 projects fail in the period from its inception in 2002 until 2013. That is, 60% […]

How much is a human life worth ? Michelle Chen links to and discusses a new study which concludes that welfare reform reduced life expectancy. I am reminded of an earlier study (there is overlap — the new study analysed the results of two actual experiments one of which was analysed in the old study)

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 […]

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 […]

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 (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 […]

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. […]

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 […]