Economics Roundtable

That is the site address for a new blog on feminism and economics.� Allison, the blogger, points us to a YouTube channel on feminist economics.

Here is Allison's advice for economics undergraduates; feel free to add to it in our comments section.

The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing ...

Logging on to my Citibank account this morning, I found this, which recapitulates an email I received a few days ago:

The link takes you here, to a letter which simply begs for parsing.

But before we get to the (ahem) substance of the letter, it's ...

"[A] recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Logging on to my Citibank account this morning, I found this, which recapitulates an email I received a few days ago:

The link takes you here, to a letter which simply begs for parsing.

But before we get to the (ahem) substance of the letter, it's ...

I am testifying this morning on SCHIP before the Subcommittee on Health of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The testimony is very similar to testimony delivered before the Senate Finance Committee in April.

Yahoo! has 8 "sure fire hires":� jobs that, targeted by today's college students, apparently will make the career search a bit easier right out of college.� I'm no career search analyst or job market forecaster, but I noted how 4 of the jobs specifically listed economics as a useful ...

Once again, I think the British are showing how much they get it in the new I-Cubed Economy. In March, the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills published its new innovation strategy report: Innovation Nation.

The report starts out with a very clear statement: the nature of ...

One of our readers asked the following: "Sorry if this hijacks the thread, but among the living Austrian economists, who would you say have had the most impact on the mainstream of the discipline? And has their influence been due to uniquely Austrian insights or could their most influential work have been ...

From TerraPass:

Dear newsletter subscriber,

Just today we launched our petition opposing the gas tax holiday proposed by Senator Clinton and Senator McCain, and already we've gathered 1,000 signatures from citizens who want to send a strong message that this policy is bad for the environment and bad for America.

Will ...

From Environmental Capital:

Are environmental goods—be they polar bears, tropical forests, or clean air—best preserved with a dollar sign on them? Or does the attempt to put a price on everything lead to knowing the value of nothing?

...

At the heart of the debate is whether the same tools that can determine the ...

This video reminds me of a time John and I were at yet another thrilling academic conference.� I was in the midst of a typically amazing presentation when I was rudely interupted by some inane question.� After wittily embarrassing the unnamed, but famous, questioner, I calmly walked to the ...

Update:� Apparently John and I were writing at the same time.� He just writes faster--or has more time to waste--or something.� So I am shortening my post and just giving you my opinion.

From the WSJ Environmental Capital blog:

At the heart of the debate is whether ...

Corporate executives bent on an Internet smear campaign might first consider the ignominious unmasking of surfxaholic36.

Surfxaholic36 was the online pseudonym a Burger King vice president reportedly pilfered from his young daughter to ...

We received word yesterday that the South Dakota Supreme Court has declined to rehear the Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Kinsman insurance tax discrimination case; the Tax Foundation had filed an amicus brief in support of the petition for rehearing. South Dakota is one of 8 remaining states that ...

Should the Federal Reserve start playing with bubbles? The collapse of two asset bubbles over the last decade — technology stocks and the housing market — is forcing central bank officials to weigh in.

Gary Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says the conventional ...

Ian Brakspear:

During the meal, one of my mates was drinking beer - 750ml bottles of Castle Lager (fondly called bombers) he ordered a 5th one, was advised that the price, which when he ordered his 1st, 2nd 3rd and 4th ones was 160 million per bottle, had ...

My good friends Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian (along with Pratap Mehta) have written a piece in the FT which takes Larry Summers to task for having expressed views on reforming globalization with which I am broadly in agreement.� They write:

The liberal economic order of ...

The other day I was toiling away when I heard a series of loud bangs. "What idiot is setting off fireworks in the middle of the afternoon?" I wondered. I went out to find out. It was Oakham School's army cadets having shooting practice.
Which set me thinking:� isn't private ...

In labor economics, a person's pay is determined by his/her contribution to revenue in a profit-maximizing world.� In the simplest competitive market model, the person is paid his/her contribution to business revenue.

But the real world is never as simple as our models.� Consider a world where a person is signed ...

Personal seat licenses, or PSL's, are a text-book example of the so-called "two-part tariff", a pricing scheme where consumers pay for a good in two installments.� The first part is a flat fee where people essentially buy the right to buy a product.� The second part of the tariff occurs ...

John LaPlante sent me this note on tradable holidays:

The real problem with holidays is that they are illiquid. You can’t trade them very well, which is why roses cost so much on Valentines Day and the price of a swiftly-dying severed evergreen increases prior to Christmas Day and drops immediately afterwards. Here ...

Ultimately, the issues involving ec 10 and Gen Ed are for the university and ...

The amazing 26econ.com shows you how to collect your own data with a web survey and Google spreadsheets:

Google spreadsheets has added forms, which allow web users to input data into a spreadsheet that you’ve created. This makes it perfect for running simple surveys. Here’s a quick run-down on ...

From the Washington Post:

The housing perhaps-not-entirely-a-crisis resembles, in one particular, the curious consensus about the global warming "crisis," concerning which, the assumption is: Although Earth's temperature has risen and fallen through many millennia, the temperature was exactly right when, in the 1960s, Al Gore became ...

I've somehow managed to avoid so much as mentioning the Clear Channel saga on this blog until now; for some reason I just couldn't get excited about it. But Heidi Moore gets a good quote in her summing up today of why it was so difficult to get a ...

Ian Brakspear:

During the meal, one of my mates was drinking beer - 750ml bottles of Castle Lager (fondly called bombers) he ordered a 5th one, was advised that the price, which when he ordered his 1st, 2nd 3rd and 4th ones was 160 million per bottle, had ...

Readers of the Wall Street Journal might be asking this question after seeing it describe several state-level initiatives being pushed by unions in Colorado as "costly." One of the initiatives would require that before carrying through with layoffs, employers demonstrate that there is "just cause" for the action.

Another ...

The paper, from the NBER, is 70 pages long, but the conclusion, from Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, is simple, and stunning:

The main result of the paper is that changes in childhood lead exposure are responsible for a 56% drop in violent ...

I've somehow managed to avoid so much as mentioning the Clear Channel saga on this blog until now; for some reason I just couldn't get excited about it. But Heidi Moore gets a good quote in her summing up today of why it was so difficult to get a ...

According to the latest report from the National Venture Capital Association, venture capital investments were down 8.5% during the first quarter of 2008 when compared to the last quarter of 2007. The report also found that deal flow was also down.

The decrease in new deals landing on the ...

My and Karol's dear friend Betsy Albaugh -- founder and owner of Betsy Fisher, the wonderful womens'-clothing store near Dupont Circle -- sent this site to me yesterday.� In her e-mail, Betsy said "If only people had half a clue as to why this is happening...."� Indeed.� ...

The paper, from the NBER, is 70 pages long, but the conclusion, from Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, is simple, and stunning:

The main result of the paper is that changes in childhood lead exposure are responsible for a 56% drop in violent ...

It's not clear what point the NYT was trying to make in its coverage of the April consumer price report released yesterday.

At one point the article asserts that:

"But most American households do not have the luxury of excluding gasoline and food from their budgets. The details of the ...

Christie's sale on Tuesday night was a stunning success, ratifying the ridiculous levels to which contemporary art has soared in recent years. The Sotheby's sale on Wednesday night, by contrast, took the market to a whole new level. Not only isn't this market crashing, it looks very ...

If older workers want to retire later, or are forced to do so, will they be able to find jobs?:

Older Staffers Get Uneasy Embrace, by David Wessel, WSJ: Americans are going to have to retire later, we're often told. They live longer than their ...

Christie's sale on Tuesday night was a stunning success, ratifying the ridiculous levels to which contemporary art has soared in recent years. The Sotheby's sale on Wednesday night, by contrast, took the market to a whole new level. Not only isn't this market crashing, it looks very ...

The latest CPI release provided some much needed relief on the inflation front. What caught my eye was some of the discussion regarding the seasonal adjustment. This inspired me to wonder what seasonal adjustment was doing.

Most people know about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Under this program, payments to qualifying individuals are made once a year. There is also something called the Advance Earned Income Tax Credit (AEITC) that allows qualifying individuals to receive the credit with each paycheck. But even though ...

Last week, I testified before a subcomittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee about mortgage servicing in bankruptcy. You can read the written testimony or watch a webcast. Both the Chair of the subcommittee, Senator Schumer, and the Ranking Member, Senator Sessions had some harsh words for the current ...

James Frey has a new book out.  Bright Shiny Morning. After the controversy with his ‘memoir’, A Million Little Pieces, Frey decided to write another book - a novel, this time. His last book should have been called a novel too. So what? It’s a good book isn’t it? ...

Janet Yellen is on the lecture circuit. (Reuters)

"The 1970s were a horrible period. If there's one thing that has to be very high priority, we don't want to go back to a period that is anything like that," she said, critiquing presentations on the economy at a symposium for ...

Slicing the demographic pie for political analysis:

Polling's fuzzy math, by Crispin Sartwell, Commentary, LA Times: American "political analysis" has become obsessed with demographics.

For example, pundits and pollsters held that the Democratic contests in Ohio and Pennsylvania between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack ...

1. Mall of America executives, planning a $2 billion expansion of the mall, are continuing to press for nearly $400 million in state subsidies. Mall officials warn that the mall has "no chance of being built" ...

Why did Cablevision buy Newsday?

This week's big media news is the acquisition of Long Island-New York-area tabloid Newsday by cable TV company Cablevision. Cablevision bought the rag from the tottering Tribune Company, for over $620. In doing so, Cablevision outbid News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch (Wall Street ...

There is something about the Future Fund that brings out the latent statism of the commentariat.� Here’s Alan Kohler, praising the growing amount of revenue being hoarded by the Australian government:

Sometime next year Australia will have its own $US100 billion sovereign wealth fund (SWF) and the ...

German president Horst Köhler has some strong words about international financial markets:

Global financial markets have become “a monster” that “must be put back in its place”, the German president has said, comparing bankers with alchemists who were responsible for “massive destruction of assets”.

In some of the ...

From the Toronto Star:

More money for GM despite layoffs, McGuinty says:

Premier Dalton McGuinty says Ontario will give General Motors more money for new projects, despite thousands of layoffs announced by the automaker.

GM wants the Ontario and federal governments to contribute about $140 million towards a new engine plant in St. Catharines, ...

$743,000 to auto-body shops for repairs made necessary by fender-benders at exits from Dodger Stadium parking lot.

$249 million to tattoo parlors and hair stylists from David Beckham.

This article from the Cleveland Fed compares the jobless rate for men and women to the unemployment rate. The jobless rate entire working-age population in the estimate labor market weakness, not just the labor force as in the unemployment rate calculation (the difference includes factors such as discouraged workers). There ...

When people buy condos, they expect their monthly fees will cover many of the responsibilities that they would otherwise have as single-family homeowners, like cutting the grass and ...

Is there ...

David Gaffen is watching the VIX decline to levels well off its March highs, and back towards its lowest point of the year to date. Meanwhile, Alea is watching financial-instution credit default swap spreads decline to levels well off their March highs, and back towards the lowest point ...

It’s regularly stated that the size of the average (new) American home has doubled since 1950, and implied that this increase has continued fairly steadily over the intervening decades. This seems a bit surprising given that (on standard measures) real wages for large groups of workers have not increased ...

U.S. foreclosure filings climbed 65 percent and bank seizures more than doubled in April from a year earlier as mortgage industry efforts to modify loans fell short.

More than 243,300 properties were in some stage ...

In announcing the decision to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species Act:

While the legal standards under the ESA compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting.� Any ...

David Gaffen is watching the VIX decline to levels well off its March highs, and back towards its lowest point of the year to date. Meanwhile, Alea is watching financial-instution credit default swap spreads decline to levels well off their March highs, and back towards the lowest point ...

A change in the way the company values some assets that aren't traded reduced credit losses by $1.3 billion, while a separate rule that lets the company pick and choose which assets to measure contributed ...

Here are remarks as prepared for delivery by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday, in which he said the polar bear must be protected because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming. But he also said that regulators must prevent unintended harm to the U.S. “society and ...