Via Social Europe Journal, Dani Rodrik points to both a perennial question on economic self-interests and elections: Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, have recently produced some stark findings for the United States that have dramatic implications for the functioning of democracy – in the US and elsewhere. … When […]
Paul Krugman has taken aim at the profession here and here. It is not just being wrong sometimes… by Sandwichman at Econospeak writes: Economists: Lawyers? Shysters? Touts? “Basically, a lot of economists use the tools of science to accomplish literary– or lawyerly — goals.” — Noah Smith, Economics Isn’t Science or Literature If that’s […]
By David Zetland at Aguanomics, author of Living with Water Scarcity [free download for Angry Bear members] How should your community manage its water? MB asked one last question after my AWRA seminar: You said that each location should decide which system/structure they think is best for their context, but in the places you’ve traveled […]
Urban Legend— You write: That claim that one-third of Medicare spending is wasted sounds pretty questionable to me.” This is your opinion. If you had spent the last 20 years working as a medical researcher investigating unnecessary treatment, your opinion would be of great interest to all of us; but, I’m assuming you have not […]
How fast is slack consumed? How can we measure the speed at which slack is consumed? We can use capacity utilization and unemployment to set up a simple measure for consuming slack by dividing capacity utilization by the unemployment rate in terms of percentage change year-over-year. (Thanks to Alan Thomson at Terra Firma Financial who […]
In a speech by Janet Yellen on April 11, 2012, she talked about her preferred version of the Taylor rule to determine the Federal Funds rate. The Taylor (1993) rule calls for the federal funds rate to begin rising in early 2013, whereas the Taylor (1999) rule has its liftoff in early 2015, a lot […]
by David Zetland on Aguanomics Time for a new boat OM writes from California: Have you thought or written about public purchase of water flows needed for the environment? We have a new water bond that includes a lot of funds for this sort of thing. It strikes me that it fits with the model […]
Lifted from an op ed e-mail from Stormy: A piece in the Guardian is interesting, dealing with poverty (real poverty) and inequality. I think that Angry Bear should really address what can be done about rising inequality. Here are the last two paragraphs: The prospect is one of a society such as the one we […]
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the first book to make a data-driven examination of economic inequality. Based on hundreds of years worth of data, it attempts to determine the long-term trends in inequality and the social and political consequences that follow from them. In this final post, I want to highlight the most […]