Economics Roundtable

The Problem - I

Calculated Risk has the clearest picture of the problem we face.


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The Problem - II

Calculated Risk adds the the clearest picture of the housing tailspin.


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Special Topic 8/4/10

This week, the Roundtable will feature a special listing for reaction to the payroll employment figures from ADP on Wednesday and the BLS on Friday.

ADP:  +42,000
BLS:  -131,000/+71,000


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Special Topics 6/28/10

This week, the Roundtable will feature special listings for reaction to Wednesday's
CBO budget projections and the
payroll employment figures from ADP on Wednesday and the BLS on Friday.

ADP:  +13,000
BLS:  -125,000/+83,000
CBO:  Take your pick.


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Current Economic Conditions 6/5/10

James Hamilton summarizes the situation.


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About Economics (Mike Moffatt)


March 18, 2010, 8:04 am, 668633

Garth Brazelton thinks so, in an argument I find somewhat persuasive:


My issue is that he keeps saying 'sin taxes' are not Pigovian. I've disagreed on this point, and I disagree continually. A basic definition of a Pigovian tax is: a tax levied on a particular behavior in ...


March 9, 2010, 6:04 pm, 663700
I am a supporter of the VAT, so I was interested in reading Veronique de Rugy's anti-VAT piece The Wrong Policy at the Wrong Time. I was surprised to find that there were two sentences I was in complete agreement with:

Which suggests a final thought: Focusing on ...


February 26, 2010, 8:04 am, 657189
Arnold Kling quotes from a terrific piece by Eric S. Raymond:

We've spent the last seventy years increasing the hidden overhead and downside risks associated with hiring a worker -- which meant the minimum revenue-per-employee threshold below which hiring doesn't make sense has crept up and up and up, ...


February 25, 2010, 10:04 am, 656564
Five years later, We Will Never Run Out of Oil is still one of my most read articles and the source of the majority of the angry e-mails I get. I wonder how many Prof. Boudreaux will receive for For oil, tap ingenuity. I particularly enjoyed ...


February 24, 2010, 6:04 pm, 656186

The international trade / public policy course I teach at Ivey is quite Keynesian. Next time I teach the course I will give my students Arnold Kling's How I Think About Keynesian Economics - it is absolutely brilliant. I particularly find this part useful:

Imagine that all ...


February 21, 2010, 2:04 pm, 654044
Paul Krugman makes an excellent argument based on behavior economics on the benefits of higher inflation:

I would add, however, that there's another case for a higher inflation rate -- an argument made most forcefully by Akerlof, Dickens, and Perry (pdf). It goes like this: even in the long run, ...


February 19, 2010, 10:04 am, 653253
A terrific post at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative -


February 18, 2010, 10:04 am, 652402

King at SCSUScholars on the evidence (or non-evidence) that the stimulus package "worked":

Most of what we write about the effects of stimulus are just that, "an attempt to gain knowledge." A bureaucrat writes down some numbers. Reporters and bloggers find flaws. Econometric models estimate the effects, but those models ...


February 18, 2010, 10:04 am, 652400

Some terrific links here: We're Not Running Out Of - Or Even Low On - Sources of 'Nonrenewable' Energy.

I am not a geologist, so I am not going to provide any commentary on physical reserves. What I can comment on is the bad economics behind the ...


February 18, 2010, 10:04 am, 652401
Tyler Cowen asks: Is there a case for a VAT?

I'm shocked he has to ask this - of course there is! The U.S. federal government has very few options to dig themselves out of their fiscal hole. Their fiscal options are: Significant cuts in spending, which ...



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