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EconAcademics.org

Blog aggregator for economics research

2026-07-17

• Book Review: "Power and Progress"
  by Noah Smith in Noahpinion, 2026-07-17 03:52:55 UTC

  My elderly rabbit Giggles has unfortunately been quite sick the past two days (he’s recovering now), so I haven’t had as much time to write. Instead I thought I would repost a book review I did two years ago . I’ll be back with more original content tomorrow! In my post yesterday about the “We Must Act Now” statement, I noted that Daron Acemoglu successfully got the writers to alter some key language in exchange for his signature — most likely, adding the “steering” idea that I took issue with. Technological “steering” is the central policy recommendation of Acemoglu’s 2023 book Power and Prog [...]

2026-07-13

• The American suburbs are better than you think
  by Noah Smith in Noahpinion, 2026-07-13 12:38:16 UTC

  “Buy a big house and live in the suburbs” — Tracy Chapman “Outside suburbia’s sprawling everywhere/ I don’t want to go, baby” — Kim Wilde I grew up in the suburbs, and when I got the chance, I moved to a big city and never looked back. 1 I love living in dense, built-up urban areas, with great train systems and tons of restaurants and shops. Japanese cities are the best in the world, and I’ve written plenty of posts about what makes them so great . But you don’t have to be Japan in order to create amazing metropolises — New York City, Paris, Istanbul, Seoul, London, etc. are all excellent plac [...]

2026-07-06

• What US assets are held overseas?
  by ? in FRED blog, 2026-07-06 13:00:00 UTC

  The FRED Blog recently discussed who holds Treasury securities in the US and abroad. Today, we answer a related question: How do Treasury securities fit into the overall portfolio of US financial assets held overseas? Our FRED graph above uses data from the Treasury International Capital (TIC) system to show the class shares of US financial assets held overseas. In April 2026, those asset classes were (in descending order) Equities (blue area). Common stock, preferred stock, and fund shares of US corporations made up 59.4% of the overall portfolio of US financial assets held overseas Long-te [...]

• Is the dollar in danger of losing its supremacy?
  by Dalton,A in LSE Review of Books, 2026-07-06 11:14:28 UTC

  Kenneth Rogoff’ s Our Dollar, Your Problem explores how the US dollar has maintained its position as the world’s dominant currency. Combining economic history, geopolitics and monetary economics, Rogoff explains dollar dominance with institutional credibility, financial depth and America’s power. The book offers an eagle-eyed ,critical view of the evolving global financial landscape, writes Srishti Gupta . Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead. Kenneth Rogoff. Yale University Press. 2025 (hardback); 2026 (paperback). [...]

2026-06-29

• AI investment and semiconductor prices
  by ? in FRED blog, 2026-06-29 13:00:00 UTC

  The takeaway Although data center construction and semiconductor purchases are both related to the AI boom, changes in their prices may be occurring at different stages of the investment process.   Producer price index Our FRED graph above shows the producer price index for semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing. This index measures prices received by domestic producers in that industry. For much of the recent past, the index had changed slowly, even during periods when semiconductor shortages received wide attention. But that pattern has changed: The index rose from 61.6 [...]

• Migrants vs natives vs machines
  by Johan Fourie in Our Long Walk, 2026-06-29 06:02:27 UTC

  In the autumn of 1965, something was missing from the tomato fields of California. For two decades, close to half a million Mexican men had crossed the border each year to pick the crops that Americans ate. They were called braceros – hired hands, brought in under a government programme that had started during the war. Then, on the last day of 1964, Washington closed the programme down. The braceros went home. Politicians had promised this would be good news for American workers. Take away the foreigners, the argument ran, and farmers would have no choice but to offer better wages to the local [...]

2026-06-23

• Lessons of Brexit
  by Chris Dillow in Chris Dillow, 2026-06-23 07:51:51 UTC

  Today is the tenth anniversary of the vote to leave the EU - one of the worst political decisions in living memory. It’s not just those experts of whom people have had enough who believe this. So too do the voters. According to Yougov , 57% think we were wrong to vote to leave the EU, including 23% of Leave voters. And only 12% think Brexit has been a success. Our biggest political decision in years, taken after months of extensive public debate, was therefore mistaken. Unlike other bad decisions, such as the Truss/Kwarteng Budget or the election of a succession of inadequate prime ministers, [...]

2026-06-22

• Urbanisation, megaprojects and dispossession in Asia
  by Dalton,A in LSE Review of Books, 2026-06-22 11:22:34 UTC

  The Political Economy of Megaprojects in Asia edited by Hyun Bang Shin and Dong-Wan Gimm critiques the megaproject as the dominant model of urban development across Asia. Through interdisciplinary case studies in South Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Turkey, and Malaysia, this compelling, nuanced volume reveals how states, private capital and various actors reshape urban landscapes through large-scale infrastructural and real-estate projects, writes Sara Bardhan . The Political Economy of Megaprojects in Asia: State Power, Land Control, Financial Flows, and Dispossession. Hyun Bang Shin and Do [...]

2026-06-19

• Colorado’s Funeral Mistake
  by ? in Marginal Revolution, 2026-06-19 11:20:08 UTC

  Today about a quarter of the US workforce are required to have a license to work in their chosen profession, up from just 5 percent in 1950. Almost always the trend has been to add occupational licensing over time, but in 1983 Colorado did something unusu… [...]

2026-06-18

• AI versus the China Shock
  by Adam Ozimek in Agglomerations, 2026-06-18 10:31:34 UTC

  To hear an extended conversation about the themes in this post, please subscribe and listen to our podcast, The New Bazaar . The China Shock refers to the widespread job loss that certain workers and communities suffered because of the rapid rise of trade with China in the 2000s. The AI Shock refers to the same thing happening to white collar workers from the rise of Artificial Intelligence. For now, the AI Shock is merely a potential shock. But a number of economists , journalists , and other experts have drawn worrying parallels between these two shocks. We understand why. Across a large bod [...]

2026-06-17

• What Set-Asides Cost: A Lesson from Timber Auctions.
  by noreply@blogger.com (Luke Froeb) in Managerial Econ, 2026-06-17 17:44:21 UTC

  California's Public Utilities Commission is pressuring utilities to steer about 1.5% of procurement toward state-certified "LGBT-owned" firms.  Setting aside the certification debate, what will this cost the state?  In every auction, the winner has to outbid the second-best bidder, so the second-best bidder sets the price. Weaken the field and you weaken that price-setter. But which way the price moves depends on whether the government is buying or selling. When the government buys, it runs a procurement auction: bidders compete to sell to the government, and the lowest-cost bidder wins, whi [...]

2026-06-15

• Who holds US Treasury securities overseas? : Data from the TIC system
  by ? in FRED blog, 2026-06-15 13:00:00 UTC

  The majority of Treasury securities are held by the American public and institutions , including the Federal Reserve. FRED recently added data from the Treasury International Capital (TIC) system. As the name implies, this dataset provides a global scope. In March 2026, the nine largest foreign holders of U.S. long- and short-term Treasury Securities were (in descending order) Japan United Kingdom China, Mainland France Canada Belgium Ireland Cayman Islands Luxembourg This May 2026 FEDS Note by Andrew McCallum et al. highlights that “these nine countries collectively hold about 45 percent o [...]

2026-06-10

• What bond market constraint?
  by Chris Dillow in Chris Dillow, 2026-06-10 08:39:06 UTC

  “The cost of government borrowing” writes MP Yuan Yang “constrains policy decisions”. She’s partly right, but this should not greatly trouble the left. First, we must recognise that to a large extent the bond market constraint is in fact an inflation constraint. If a government were to borrow significantly more, bond investors would fear that the higher aggregate demand would raise inflation. This would lead either to expectations of higher interest rates as the Bank of England tried to control inflati