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Blog aggregator for economics research

2021-09-16

• The Neoclassical Model and the Welfare Costs of Selection
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-09-16 17:22:47 UTC

  By Fabrice Collard and Omar Licandro http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9249&r=dge This paper embeds firm dynamics into the Neoclassical model and provides a simple framework to solve for the transitional dynamics of economies moving towards more selection. As in the Neoclassical model, markets are perfectly competitive, there is only one good and two production factors (capital and labor). At equilibrium, aggregate technology is Neoclassical, but the average quality of capital and the depreciation rate are both endogenous and positively related to selection. At steady state, output per [...]

• A Win for Devin Nunes in Lawsuit Over Journalist Ryan Lizza's Tweet
  by Elizabeth Nolan Brown in Hit & Run blog, 2021-09-16 13:41:02 UTC

  Tweeting article after Nunes called it defamatory could count as "actual malice," court says. In a disturbing ruling for fans of free speech, a federal court has partially sided with Rep. Devin Nunes (R–Calif.) in his lawsuit against journalist Ryan Lizza. Nunes has accused Lizza and Hearst Magazine Media, which publishes  Esquire , of defamation and conspiracy. Back in 2018, Esquire published an article by Lizza headlined "Devin Nunes's Family Farm Is Hiding a Politically Explosive Secret." The article suggested that Nunes [...]

2021-09-14

• No country is an island: International cooperation and climate change
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-09-14 15:00:18 UTC

  By Ferrari Massimo and Pagliari Maria Sole http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:815&r=dge In this paper we explore the cross-country implications of climate-related mitigation policies. Specifically, we set up a two-country, two-sector (brown vs green) DSGE model with negative production externalities stemming from carbon-dioxide emissions. We estimate the model using US and euro area data and we characterize welfare-enhancing equilibria under alternative containment policies. Three main policy implications emerge: i) fiscal policy should focus on reducing emissions by levying taxes on pol [...]

2021-09-10

• Entrepreneurial Economies
  by Randall G. Holcombe in The Beacon, 2021-09-10 23:33:35 UTC

  Academic institutions increasingly are recognizing the importance of entrepreneurship to the performance of an economy, and in response, many (including my own institution, Florida State University) have established entrepreneurship programs to give students some skills that can help them succeed as entrepreneurs. I’m supportive of these efforts, but the degree to which individuals in an economy are entrepreneurial is affected more by an economy’s institutions than by characteristics of individual entrepreneurs. Some economies are more entrepreneurial than others. Entrepreneurial economies hav [...]

2021-09-09

• Residential segregation and redlining
  by ? in FRED blog, 2021-09-09 13:00:00 UTC

  In a recent post , the FRED Blog described how the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created color-coded maps of 239 cities across the U.S. to indicate the riskiness associated with making mortgage loans in each neighborhood. This practice, adopted between 1935 and 1940, informed the supervisory work of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board over the lenders. Let’s recap the color codes for those maps: Grade A: “Best” (shaded green), where properties were expected to increase or maintain a high appraised value, posing the lowest default risk for mortgage lenders. Grade B: “Still desirable” (sha [...]

2021-09-08

• Dos determinantes de la inflación
  by Juan Herreño in Foco Económico, 2021-09-08 17:20:15 UTC

  La conducción de la política monetaria en Colombia está en la discusión pública, un lugar usualmente ocupado por la política fiscal. En mi lectura de la discusión en prensa, blogs, y Twitter, hay dos posturas bastante diferentes. La primera postura indica que los bancos centrales solo generan inflación, sin mayor beneficio en aumento de empleo. En la segunda postura, por el contrario, el banco central tiene un poder, casi que ilimitado para controlar la producción sin mayores efectos inflacionarios. En esta columna voy a tratar de proveer el marco conceptual más popular entre los macroeconomis [...]

2021-09-07

• Moneta rossa o moneta blu? Banche centrali alla prova delle valute digitali
  by Alessio Garau in La Voce, 2021-09-07 09:53:30 UTC

  Il successo delle criptovalute ha spinto molte banche centrali a progettare l’introduzione di una propria moneta digitale. Rischi e nuove sfide vanno affrontati attraverso il coordinamento internazionale, cercando di evitare “una rincorsa al digitale”. Il successo delle criptovalute Immaginiamo un’economia dove coesistono due monete : la moneta rossa, universalmente accettata, e la moneta blu, accettata solo da una porzione di individui. La coesistenza si può spiegare solo tramite una differenza in termini di benefici monetari (tasso di rendimento) e non. Possiamo immaginare, ad ese [...]

2021-09-06

• The Long-Term Effects of Capital Requirements
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-09-06 21:21:09 UTC

  By Gianni De Nicolo, Nataliya Klimenko, Sebastian Pfeil and Jean-Charles Rochet http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2152&r=dge We build a stylized dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions to analyze costs and benefits of capital requirements in the short-term and long-term. We show that since increasing capital requirements limits the aggregate loan supply, the equilibrium loan rate spread increases, which raises bank profitability and the market-to-book value of bank capital. Hence, banks build up larger capital buffers which (i) lowers the public losses in case of a [...]

2021-09-04

• Richard Murphy is not up to speed on banking.
  by Ralph Musgrave in Ralphonomics, 2021-09-04 02:36:00 UTC

    This article of his contains blunder after blunder.  It’s entitled “Positive Money and the Bank of England are completely wrong….”.  Apologies for the length of this article, but the sheer number of blunders will take time to address. In reference to Bank of England proposals on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) he says in his second para: “Quite staggeringly they (Positive Money) are using this proposal to demand the end to the right of private banks to create money, and as I note below the Bank of England will not want to take on that role.”   Actually the Positive Money article to whic [...]

2021-09-03

• Monetary Policy and the Persistent Aggregate Effects of Wealth Redistribution
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-09-03 17:39:16 UTC

  By Martin Kuncl and Alexander Ueberfeldt http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:21-38&r=dge We identify a sizable wealth redistribution channel which creates a monetary policy trade-off whereby short-term economic stimulus is followed by persistently lower output over the medium term. This trade-off is stronger in economies with more nominal household debt but weakened by a more aggressive monetary policy stance and underprice-level targeting. Given this trade-off, low-for-long episodes can lead to persistently depressed output. The medium-term implications of the wealth redistribution chann [...]

2021-09-02

• Residential redlining of U.S. neighborhoods
  by ? in FRED blog, 2021-09-02 13:00:00 UTC

  The FRED graph above shows home values for four classifications of neighborhoods from 1930 to 2010. The lowest values (and highest levels of risk) are shown by the red line, which was an intentional choice: Red is the color used in 1930s city maps to mark the residential neighborhoods where lenders deemed they were most likely to lose money when making mortgage loans. And that color gave rise to the term “redlining.” After the Great Depression (1929-1933), the federal government tasked the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), among several other agencies, with overseeing the work of resident [...]

• Sugli incentivi all’eolico il vento delle infiltrazioni mafiose
  by Alessio Garau in La Voce, 2021-09-02 09:00:41 UTC

  La produzione di energia eolica è stata ampiamente sussidiata, attirando l’interesse delle organizzazioni criminali. Lo dimostra il numero di turbine installate nei comuni ad alta criminalità organizzata. Cosa cambia con incentivi più competitivi. Breve storia degli incentivi sull’eolico Il Green Deal , lanciato dall’Unione europea nel dicembre del 2019, persegue l’obiettivo di raggiungere la neutralità climatica entro il 2050 e di sostenere le aziende nella produzione di energia pulita e tecnologie verdi. Non è la prima regolamentazione a sostegno di questo tipo di investimenti. [...]

2021-08-24

• Is there a “concrete wall” for women in Latin American Fintech?
  by bbatiz in The Cashless Society, 2021-08-24 17:40:14 UTC

  This was an original contriobution to Open Banking Excellence blog . Verbatim copy under creative commons licence. Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo (Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK), and Ignacio González-Correa (Department of Economics, Universidad de Santiago, Chile) We initiated a project to explore the barriers women face to become fintech entrepreneurs in Latin America. Microfinance and then fintech start-ups have focused and helped women “at the base of the pyramid” (by reducing frictions and increasing financial inclusion), but what is the situation of others and particularl [...]

2021-08-18

• Emigration and Fiscal Austerity in a Depression
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-08-18 02:32:03 UTC

  By Guilherme Bandeira, Jordi Caballe and Eugenia Vella http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:2035&r=dge This paper studies the role of emigration in a deep recession when the government implements fiscal consolidation. We build a small open economy New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions, emigration of the labour force, and fiscal details. Our simulations for the austerity mix during the Greek Depression show that fiscal austerity accounts for one third of the output drop and more than 10% of migration outflows, whereas the rest is attributed to the macroeconomic environment. [...]

2021-08-16

• The ECB's New Strategy: Codifying Existing Practice . . . plus
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2021-08-16 11:00:01 UTC

  “A long period of low price pressures, and years of repeated overprediction of the future path of inflation require that higher inflation prospects need to be visibly reflected in actual underlying inflation dynamics before they warrant a more fundamental reassessment of the medium-term inflation outlook.” Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, “ A new strategy for a changing world ,” July 14, 2021. When the ECB began operation in 1999, many observers focused on its differences from the Federal Reserve. Perhaps the most widely cited distinction is the one between the ECB’s [...]

2021-08-14

• Does It Matter How Central Banks Accumulate Reserves? Evidence from Sovereign Spreads
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-08-14 23:10:45 UTC

  By César Sosa-Padilla and Federico Sturzenegger http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:79&r=dge There has been substantial research on the benefits of accumulating foreign reserves, but less on the relative merits of how these reserves are accumulated. In this paper we explore whether the form of accumulation affects country risk. We first present a model of endogenous sovereign debt defaults, where we show that reserve accumulation through the issuance of debt contingent on local output reduces spreads in a way that reserve accumulation with foreign borrowing does not. We confirm this mode [...]

2021-08-09

• The Birth and Growth of Modern Zoning (Part II): The FARsighted Great Depression
  by Jason Barr in Skynomics Blog, 2021-08-09 12:12:48 UTC

  Jason M. Barr ( @JasonBarrRU )    August 9, 2021 Preface Today, many cities worldwide regulate urban density by limiting the floor area ratio (FAR)—the amount of allowable building space relative to the lot size. Cities use FAR caps to reduce building bulk, preserve leafy residential neighborhoods, and maintain the historical feel of central cities. The FAR is one of the most important tools in urban planning. This is blog post #2 in a series about the birth and growth of the FAR. (Post #1 can be read here .) The View from Roaring Twenties Americans enjoyed themselves during the Roaring Twenti [...]

• Will Central Bank Digital Currencies Doom Dollar Dominance?
  by Barry Eichengreen in Project Syndicate, 2021-08-09 11:19:56 UTC

  BERKELEY – August 13-15 marks the 50th anniversary of “the weekend that changed the world,” when US President Richard Nixon suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold at a fixed price and rung down the curtain on the Bretton Woods international monetary system. The subsequent half-century brought many surprises. From a monetary standpoint, one of the greatest was the dollar’s continued dominance as a vehicle for cross-border transactions. Under Bretton Woods, the dollar’s supremacy was readily explicable. America’s financial position coming out of World War II was impregnable. Changes [...]

2021-08-08

• Distributional Effects of Emission Pricing in a Carbon-Intensive Economy: The Case of Poland
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-08-08 16:24:31 UTC

  By Marek Antosiewicz; J. Rodrigo Fuentes; Piotr Lewandowski; Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ioe:doctra:546&r=dge In this paper, we assess the distributional impact of introducing a carbon tax in Poland. We apply a two-step simulation procedure. First, we evaluate the economy-wide effects with a dynamic general equilibrium model. Second, we use a microsimulation model based on household budget survey data to assess the effects on various income groups and on inequality. We introduce a new adjustment channel related to employment changes, which is qualitatively different f [...]

2021-08-06

• Data for "Interfuel Substitution: A Meta-Analysis"
  by noreply@blogger.com (David Stern) in Stochastic Trend, 2021-08-06 04:13:00 UTC

  I've long thought that there was an error in the way I calculated the shadow elasticity of substitution (SES) in my 2012 paper on interfuel substitution in the Journal of Economic Surveys . This would have been a big problem as the paper carries out a meta-analysis of SESs. But no primary paper reported the results in terms of the SES. I computed all this data from the various ways results were presented in the original studies. I never got around to doing anything about it or even checking carefully whether there was a mistake. I suppose this is because I hate finding mistakes in my papers an [...]

2021-07-28

• Ma qualcuno pensa alle assunzioni?
  by Emiliano Mariotti in La Voce, 2021-07-28 11:50:29 UTC

  Si è discusso molto della salvaguardia di posti di lavoro spesso senza futuro e poco della necessità di recuperare il milione e mezzo di assunzioni mancate durante la pandemia. Che servirebbero anche a riassorbire gli inevitabili esuberi strutturali. Il dibattito sui licenziamenti Il confronto pubblico sul lavoro in Italia sembra concentrato soltanto sui licenziamenti. Del tutto ignorate le assunzioni. In realtà i licenziamenti sono stati molto contenuti durante il Covid e, come mostrato su lavoce , al momento non ci sono segni di accelerazioni dopo la fine del blocco dei licenziame [...]

2021-07-27

• El salario mínimo en Colombia: nueva evidencia empírica sobre sus efectos y algunas consideraciones económicas y éticas
  by Nicolás de Roux in Foco Económico, 2021-07-27 21:11:03 UTC

  El salario mínimo es uno de los temas de política pública más debatidos alrededor del mundo. Esto es particularmente cierto en Colombia, donde ronda un valor cercano al 90% del salario mediano, el valor más alto si se lo compara con el de otros países de la OECD o de Latino América ( Mondragón-Vélez et al. 2010 ). En este blog presento resultados de dos investigaciones recientes en cuya elaboración participé y que considero que son pertinentes para el debate sobre este tema. La primera de ellas encuentra un efecto causal negativo de aumentos del salario mínimo en el empleo de las industrias de [...]

2021-07-26

• The QE Ratchet
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2021-07-26 11:56:27 UTC

  “ [Quantitative easing] tends to be deployed in response to bad news, but isn’t reversed when the bad news ends. As a result, the stock of bonds held by central banks ratchets up, expanding their balance sheets into the longer term.” Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, Baron of Lothbury , July 20, 2021. When it comes to quantitative easing (QE), where you stand definitely depends on where you sit. That is among the conclusions of the important new report of the Economic Affairs Committee of the UK House of Lords . The report provides an excellent survey of how it is that central bank [...]

• Journal round-up: PharmacoEconomics – Open 5(2)
  by Rita Faria in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2021-07-26 06:00:01 UTC

  Our authors provide regular round-ups of the latest peer-reviewed journals. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as other notable releases. Visit our journal round-up log to see past editions organised by publication title. If you’d like to write a journal round-up, get in touch . This June issue has a bumper 18 articles from systematic reviews to cost-effectiveness analyses and many more. The systematic reviews are both on health economic evidence, one on point-of-care testing and the other on mantle cell lymphoma . There is also a protocol for a review on th [...]

2021-07-24

• Why China and the United States aren’t cooperating on COVID-19
  by Xirui Li in East Asia Forum, 2021-07-24 12:00:37 UTC

  Author: Xirui Li, NTU Intergovernmental cooperation between the United States and China was an important part of the fight against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Yet serious collaboration to combat COVID-19 is yet to materialise. The state of US–China bilateral relations and the failure to cooperate has arguably worsened the pandemic. Despite similarities between the two initial outbreaks, COVID-19 seems to have deepened the antagonism and rivalry between the United States and China. Many attribute the lack of pandemic cooperation to a preoccupation with the ongoing trade a [...]

2021-07-23

• Esto es lo que pasa cuando crees que aciertas con el momento de vender las acciones en bolsa cuando ésta cae
  by Alejandro Nieto González in Elblogsalmon, 2021-07-23 08:01:47 UTC

  Llevamos unos días en los que las bolsas bajan . De hecho ya se habla de que ha llegado la corrección después de meses de subidas, y que es el momento de vender las acciones para esperar de nuevo a las subidas. Sin embargo, aunque puede parecer una estrategia adecuada (vender cuando empieza a caer y comprar cuando empieza a subir), no podemos predecir el futuro y posiblemente estaremos haciendo lo contrario . Los estudios empíricos dicen que no se acierta en el market timing Si la bolsa cae... mejor no hacer nada Imaginemos que somos unos expertos en acertar cuándo el merca [...]

2021-07-22

• Does emigration hurt businesses in migrant-sending countries?
  by Ryan Edwards in Development Policy Blog, 2021-07-22 20:00:31 UTC

  When people leave their countries to work abroad, firms, industry groups, and even policy-makers often raise concerns about so-called skills shortages and brain drain. I discussed this in detail in three earlier blogs ( here , here , and here ). These perceptions, whether valid or not, often lead to nationalistic policies that create barriers to labour mobility and economic integration, limiting the freedoms of citizens and broader economic and social progress. One key issue that has for a long time been neglected in the evidence on migration and brain drain is whether emigration actually has [...]

2021-07-20

• Evaluaciones recientes de los efectos del Salario Mínimo Interprofesional
  by ? in Nada es Gratis, 2021-07-20 05:00:06 UTC

  Por Juan Luis Jiménez y Ángel Martínez El Salario Mínimo Interprofesional es la cuantía mínima que, según el Gobierno de un país, debe percibir cualquier trabajador por cuenta ajena como retribución a su desempeño laboral. Este se aplica en muchos países ( [...]

• Jeff Bezos offers a vision of flying through space colonies with our own wings. But is that the best way to save the human race?
  by insider@insider.com (Abigail Higgins) in Business Insider, 2021-07-20 04:01:00 UTC

  Jeff Bezos unveiling the "Blue Moon" lunar lander on May 9, 2019. Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post via Getty Images In 2019, Jeff Bezos posed the question: "What happens when unlimited demand meets finite resources?" Bezos sees space as a place where the weather could be like "Maui on its best days" and, without gravity, where people would "fly with their own wings." Is the billionaire Amazon founder the best person to be lecturing about overconsumption in a world of finite resources? See more stories on Insider's business page . Jeff Bezos has been warning us for years that humans c [...]

2021-07-16

• Journal round-up: PharmacoEconomics 39(5)
  by Don Husereau in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2021-07-16 06:00:06 UTC

  Our authors provide regular round-ups of the latest peer-reviewed journals. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as other notable releases. Visit our journal round-up log to see past editions organised by publication title. If you’d like to write a journal round-up, get in touch . The May 2021 (Volume 39, Issue 5) issue of Pharmacoeconomics features two economic evaluations, two economic burden/resource utilization studies, two country-specific valuation studies, and two systematic reviews. The reviews provide syntheses of ‘societal costs’ in women with breast [...]

2021-07-12

• Trillions of Dollars of Retirement Wealth Have Been Mislaid
  by ? in Econlog, 2021-07-12 00:35:24 UTC

    And once they are accounted for, measured wealth inequality plummets.  One reason that the illiquid and non-market resources of DB [defined benefit] pensions and Social Security are typically excluded from studies of wealth concentration is that they are not directly available in household-level survey data. Our work addresses this issue by taking data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), estimating work histories to predict future Social Security income streams, and combining these results with estimated accrued DB assets and other market wealth holdings to form an expanded wealth me [...]

2021-07-11

• A Few Thoughts About Economic Growth as a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy
  by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics, 2021-07-11 13:32:00 UTC

   John Cochrane has posted an important blog post about adapting to climate change.   His piece mainly focuses on macroeconomic issues.  For decades, John was colleagues with Bob Lucas and those familiar with Robert Lucas's optimistic work on economic growth will see a correlation.  While John makes many points, his main point is;  "if a world's economy grows by 3% per year out to the year 2100 --- it will be rich enough to handle any of Mother Nature's shocks at that point or along the way".   He points to the growth of China's economy as an example.  John is optimistic about our future; "The [...]

• Podcast: uma conversa sobre Adam Smith e o iluminismo escocês
  by Hugo da Gama Cerqueira in Meu gabinete de curiosidades, 2021-07-11 13:08:00 UTC

    Há alguns dias comentei em redes sociais a respeito de um artigo sobre o contexto social e intelectual em que Adam Smith desenvolveu suas ideias, o Iluminismo escocês. O artigo estava completando 15 anos de publicação e, eu dizia, penso que "envelheceu bem".    Nesta semana, meu colega e amigo, Alexandre Mendes Cunha , me convidou para gravar o primeiro episódio de seu novo podcast, ipsis litteris , e a conversa girou justamente em torno daquele texto, das razões que me levaram a escrevê-lo e do porquê penso que continua tendo algum interesse.   A proposta do podcast é esta, a de apresentar [...]

• Challenging the Orthodoxy: Race, Racism and the Reconfiguration of Economics
  by stefanouma2443 in Development Economics, 2021-07-11 07:47:00 UTC

  Books abound on what is wrong with economics ( Chang 2014 ;  Keen 2011 ;  Nelson 2018 ,  Mazzucato 2018 ,  Raworth 2018 ,  Stanford 2015 ), and what we would have to do to change it. Given the little change we have seen in economics training and policy-effective economic thinking since  the global finance crisis  of 2007/08, and in light of the global environmental, inequality and health crises, it is to be seen whether these interventions can make any meaningful impact. What is good though: Half of these impactful books were written by female economists. Despite this ‘wind of change’ in [...]

2021-07-08

• Nationalbankens litteraturgennemgang tyder pÃ¥, at nedlukningerne har beskeden effekt
  by Jonas Herby in Punditokraterne, 2021-07-08 05:30:00 UTC

  To økonomer fra Nationalbanken har gennemgået en del af den forskning , der ser på effekten af nedlukninger på smittespredningen. [1] Deres tilgang er en smule anderledes end min egen litteraturgennemgang , men det overordnede resultat ser ud til at være det samme. Nedlukninger er ikke den mirakelkur mod COVID-19, som mange har gjort dem til. Inden vi ser på resultaterne i Nationalbankens litteraturgennemgang, er der to centrale pointer, der er vigtige at få på plads. Selv hvis nedlukningen redder mange liv, er effekten af frivillige adfærdsændringer sandsynligvis vigtigst Mit eget l [...]

2021-07-05

• Welcome to Uneasy Money, aka the Hawtreyblog
  by David Glasner in Uneasy Money, 2021-07-05 14:51:00 UTC

  UPDATE: I’m re-upping my introductory blog post, which I posted ten years ago toady. It’s been a great run for me, and I hope for many of you, whose interest and responses have motivated to keep it going. So thanks to all of you who have read and responded to my posts. I’m adding a few retrospective comments and making some slight revisions along the way. In addition to new posts, I will be re-upping some of my old posts that still seem to have relevance to the current state of our world. What the world needs now, with apologies to the great Burt Bachrach and Hal David , is, well, another blog [...]

2021-07-03

• Recycling Carbon Tax Revenue to Maximize Welfare
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-07-03 15:34:04 UTC

  By Stephie Fried, Kevin Novan and William Peterman http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2021-23&r=dge This paper explores how to recycle carbon tax revenue back to households to maximize welfare. Using a general equilibrium lifecycle model calibrated to reflect the heterogeneity in the U.S. economy, we find the optimal policy uses two thirds of carbon-tax revenue to reduce the distortionary tax on capital income while the remaining one third is used to increase the progressivity of the labor-income tax. The optimal policy attains higher welfare and more equality than the lump-sum rebate app [...]

2021-07-02

• Covid-19 briefing: working from home and worker productivity
  by BankUnderground in Bank Underground, 2021-07-02 08:00:00 UTC

  John Lewis, Andrea Šiško and Misa Tanaka The Covid pandemic has led to a large enforced shift towards working from home (WFH) as a result of ‘stay-at-home’ policies in many countries. This led to a resurgence in interest in, and new reignited discussion about, the consequences of greater WFH. In this briefing we review the literature on the impact of WFH on productivity. Across a very diverse literature the key lessons are: impacts depend on the nature of tasks, the share of WFH matters, and there is big difference between enforced versus voluntary WFH. And the caveats are important to [...]

2021-07-01

• What’s different for working women in Canada? : For Canada Day, the FRED Blog compares OECD data on women in the U.S. and Canadian workforces
  by ? in FRED blog, 2021-07-01 13:00:00 UTC

  Today is Canada Day, a good opportunity to compare the U.S. with its neighbor to the north. In many ways, the Canadian and U.S. economies are similar, foremost from the fact that they’re so intertwined. But there are also some stark differences. One difference that’s received a good amount of attention is women in the labor force. The FRED graph above tracks the labor participation rate of Canadian and American women. In both countries, it has increased since the 1960s, thanks to household technology and emancipation. In 1998, it stalled in the U.S. but it has continued to progress in Canada [...]

2021-06-30

• Hold the Check: Overdrafts, Fee Caps, and Financial Inclusion
  by Blog Author in Liberty Street Economics, 2021-06-30 11:02:00 UTC

  Jennifer Dlugosz, Brian Melzer, and Donald P. Morgan Editor’s Note: Our series continues tomorrow with an examination of “Credit, Income, and Inequality.” The 25 percent of low-income Americans without a checking account operate in a separate but unequal financial world. Instead of paying for things with cheap, convenient debit cards and checks, they get by with “fringe” payment providers like check cashers, money transfer, and other alternatives. Costly overdrafts rank high among reasons why households “bounce out” of the banking system and some observers have advocated cappi [...]

2021-06-29

• Das House Kapital
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-06-29 17:39:22 UTC

  By Volker Grossmann, Benjamin Larin and Thomas Steger http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fri:fribow:fribow00523&r=dge The housing wealth-to-income ratio has been increasing in most developed economies since the 1950s. We provide a novel theory to explain this long-term pattern. We show analytically that house prices grow in the steady state if i) the housing sector is more land-intensive than the non-housing sector. Despite growing house prices and housing wealth, the housing wealth-to income ratio is constant in steady state. We hence study the dynamics in the housing wealth-to-income ratio by comp [...]

2021-06-27

• Symptoms of stagnation
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2021-06-27 12:15:35 UTC

  This morning, I got a call about my recent road accident, which of course I never had. Which highlights an important fact – that capitalist stagnation is not merely about arid aggregate data on flatlining productivity , real wages and business investment but about everyday life. If the cold calls aren’t about non-existent accidents, they’re about my computer viruses, unpaid tax, my pension , or the impending disconnection of my broadband. Fraud and mis-selling are on the rise . Why? Because in a world of secular stagnation there are fewer legitimate business opportunities – which diverts some [...]

• Universal Basic Income: A Dynamic Assessment
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-06-27 05:10:37 UTC

  By Diego Daruich and Raquel Fernández http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14869&r=dge The idea of universal basic income (UBI)—a set income that is given to all without any conditions—is making an important comeback but there is no real evidence regarding its long-term consequences. This paper provides a very inexpensive evaluation of such a policy by studying its dynamic consequences in a general equilibrium model with imperfect capital markets and labor market shocks, in which households make decisions about education, savings, labor supply, and with intergenerational linkages via skill [...]

2021-06-25

• Why investors fell in love with SPACs—and how the bubble burst
  by ? in Co.Exist, 2021-06-25 10:00:22 UTC

  Unicorns’ new favorite way to go public are also weirdly similar to bitcoin. What do Taylor Swift’s record company and Asian “superapp” Grab have in common? They are both part of Wall Street’s recent dealmaking fad: spec [...]

2021-06-24

• Are low-paid jobs really a stepping stone to better pay? A new study suggests it’s not that simple
  by ? in Forum:Blog, 2021-06-24 10:52:27 UTC

  Data from New Zealand illustrates the real difficulty in climbing the wage ladder for those in long-term low-paid work, contrary to previous research. [...]

2021-06-23

• Impronta idrica per salvaguardare l’acqua*
  by Alessio Garau in La Voce, 2021-06-23 09:28:11 UTC

  L’acqua è una risorsa essenziale per la vita umana e per molteplici attività economiche. Ed è anche un paradigma di economia circolare. In Italia è necessario migliorare i modelli gestionali e premunirsi dai rischi dei cambiamenti climatici. La situazione attuale dei servizi idrici L’acqua è una risorsa essenziale sia direttamente per la vita umana che indirettamente per il suo ruolo in molteplici attività economiche, dall’agricoltura, all’industria e al terziario. La sostenibilità ambientale è inscindibilmente legata al ciclo dell’acqua che, infatti, rappresenta pienamente il parad [...]

2021-06-22

• 85. Salario real, Productividad y Tasa de Empleo: Comparación de España con Estados Unidos y otros países, 1965-2019
  by MCG Blogs de Economía in Economía y desarrollo de España y Galicia, 2021-06-22 15:16:00 UTC

    Estos gráficos muestran la gran relación positiva existente entre Productividad del trabajo y salario real, con datos de Estados Unidos en el período 1965-2018 y de España en el período 1965-2019. España tiene una Productividad y un Salario real medio mucho menores que Estados Unidos y otros países de elevado nivel de producción por habitante. El aumento de la producción real por habitante es esencial para incrementar, al mismo tiempo, la Productividad, el Salario y la Tasa de Empleo.  Más información en el documento: Guisán, M.C. (2021)  La Economía Española 2021: Informes De Industria, Pro [...]

• Six Policy Ideas for the Next Mayor of New York City
  by Jason Barr in Skynomics Blog, 2021-06-22 12:11:35 UTC

  Jason M. Barr              June 22, 2021 Today is primary day, and New Yorkers are heading to the polls. This year, the Big Apple is using ranked choice voting , a bold new experiment in democracy. It shows that New York is still capable of adjusting policies when the need arises. And now that the state has eliminated nearly all pandemic-related restrictions , the city is poised for a rebound. The next mayor will need to deal with several issues put aside because of the pandemic: Improving housing affordability and fixing transportation. These problems stem from decisions made over sixty years [...]

2021-06-20

• Marx’s law of profitability after Capital
  by michael roberts in Michael Roberts Blog, 2021-06-20 08:58:37 UTC

  The G lobal Marxism series organized by SSK in Korea has delivered a number of important presentations and papers on aspects of Marxist economics. I participated in the second round with a paper on the Economics of Modern Imperialism . Recently Hideto Akashi of Komazawa University, Tokyo returned to the fray with a presentation on Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.  As is well known in the small circles of Marxian economics, leading Marxist scholar, Michael Heinrich, the author of a detailed account of Marx’s Capital , has argued in the past that Marx’s law of profi [...]

• Powerless Texas vs. Government
  by Wayne Lusvardi in MasterResource, 2021-06-20 06:00:08 UTC

  “ ERCOT is Enron ” – Alex Jones, conspiracy propagator, Infowars.com “You ask, ‘How do we know climate change is responsible?’ Shut up, denier. Likewise, because the weather inflicted painful blackouts on millions of voters, politicians hinted that market manipulation by energy traders may play a role. These manipulators will never be found. But shut up about that too”. — Holman Jenkins, Texas Cold’em; Power Outages are Political , WSJ, Feb. 16, 2021. “ Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them ” – Ronald Reagan The predictable electricity grid freeze in Tex [...]

2021-06-15

• Servizi pubblici: migliorarli è sempre un vantaggio*
  by Alessio Garau in La Voce, 2021-06-15 09:14:08 UTC

  I servizi pubblici “costano” in Italia il 20 per cento del Pil. Misurarne l’efficacia è perciò importante, ma non facile. I divari di qualità ed efficienza tra diverse aree sono ampi. Però un loro miglioramento offre vantaggi potenzialmente rilevanti. Un problema di misura Le risorse pubbliche destinate a finanziare la fornitura di servizi ai cittadini sono considerevoli: in Italia ammontano a circa il 20 per cento del Pil. Alcuni servizi – come, per esempio, la difesa nazionale e l’illuminazione pubblica – sono “beni pubblici”, altri presentano esternalità positive. In presenza di “ [...]

• Journal round-up: PharmacoEconomics 39(4)
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2021-06-15 06:00:05 UTC

  Our authors provide regular round-ups of the latest peer-reviewed journals. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as other notable releases. Visit our journal round-up log to see past editions organised by publication title. If you’d like to write a journal round-up, get in touch . There are four original research articles, a couple of reviews, and a handful of letters and editorials in this issue of PharmacoEconomics. A few of the studies are concerned with methods for economic evaluation, and therefore of interest to me. The leading editorial outlines a frame [...]

2021-06-14

• New Paper From Richard Tol: The Economic Impact of Weather and Climate
  by ? in Climate Science, 2021-06-14 10:55:58 UTC

  Richard Tol has a new paper out. Abstract I propose a new conceptual framework to disentangle the impacts of weather and climate on economic activity and growth: A stochastic frontier model with climate in the production frontier and weather shoc [...]

• Financial Blowout Ahead: Lobotomized Economists Clash On The Deck Of The Titanic
  by Tyler Durden in Zero Hedge, 2021-06-14 03:00:00 UTC

  Financial Blowout Ahead: Lobotomized Economists Clash On The Deck Of The Titanic Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation, Under the new world order of “stakeholder capitalism” citizens will learn to own nothing and be happy... As the geniuses running the western financial bubble sometimes called an “economy” continue to double down on their obsession to pump a dead financial system with ever more trillions in stimulus spending, arguments are raging among brainwashed economists living in denial over the oncoming systemic collapse. The thought of engineers [...]

2021-06-11

• Dai nipoti ai nonni: la pandemia circola in famiglia
  by Alessio Garau in La Voce, 2021-06-11 21:27:09 UTC

  Più stretti i legami familiari e più alto il tasso di contagio del coronavirus in tutto il mondo. Vaccino a parte, la diffusione del Covid-19 può essere contrastata solo con misure di distanziamento sociale. Come già avvenuto in passato. L’esperienza del passato per un virus poco conosciuto Un anno e mezzo dopo che l’Organizzazione mondiale della sanità ha dichiarato il coronavirus una pandemia, e nonostante l’ampia diffusione di diversi vaccini, abbiamo ancora una conoscenza limitata del virus Sars-CoV-2. Non sappiamo ancora con certezza quale sia stata la sua origine, quali sono i [...]

• The Paradoxes of the Bangladesh Miracle
  by Arvind Subramanian in Project Syndicate, 2021-06-11 12:35:14 UTC

  NEW DELHI – Ravaged periodically by natural calamities, long dependent on foreign aid and remittances, and a perennial source of refugees and emigrants, Bangladesh was once “a basket case of misery,” as Zia Haider Rahman put it in his great debut novel, In the Light of What We Know . But on the 50th anniversary of its independence, Bangladesh is fast becoming a development paragon – a Miracle on the Meghna. Among the country’s achievements is a dramatic improvement in its citizens’ average standard of living. According to the most recent data from the International Monetary Fund , Bangladesh’s [...]

• Whoopee: New Economics Foundation will research a problem solved long ago.
  by Ralph Musgrave in Ralphonomics, 2021-06-11 07:53:00 UTC

      Details are in an article on the Brave New Europe site entitled  “We don’t need cuts to pay back pandemic debt.” The author is NEF researcher Dominick Caddick. One of the central claims in the article is that a rise in interest rates would not matter for government finances because the Bank of England can always buy up debt and pay less interest to the resulting holders of reserves at the BoE, or indeed pay them no interest at all. See the two paras starting “In addition a side effect….”   Thus, so the article claims, “So even if interest rates were to rise, there would be many options for [...]

2021-06-10

• On economic intuitions
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2021-06-10 13:45:15 UTC

  Recently on Twitter Will Bott asked : “a piece of string is wrapped tightly around the Earth. In order for the string to be lifted an extra metre in each direction, roughly how much longer would it need to be?” Less than half of respondents got this right*, and 37% were wrong by a factor of 10,000. Which tells us that our intuitions can be not just wrong, but wrong by orders of magnitude. This is not the only evidence here. Shane Frederick has devised a cognitive reflection test – three questions in which there is an intuitive but wrong answer and a non-intuitive but right answer. He has found [...]

2021-06-08

• Project Link update: The evolution of the distribution of income in Canada, 1944-2010
  by Stephen Gordon in Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, 2021-06-08 19:19:47 UTC

  Project Link has been updated; the Excel file with the data updated through to June 2021 is available here . I skipped the 2020 update for Project Link for a couple of reasons. There was obviously the distraction of the pandemic, but mainly because I hadn't yet finished the next extension. Every year, I try to extend the data base, and the latest extension took more time than I had originally expected. This year's extension is the data set behind this animation I posted on twitter a while ago; the details are below the fold.  The Statistics Canada data tables for the Canadian inc [...]

2021-06-07

• Understanding How Central Banks Use Their Balance Sheets: A Critical Categorization
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2021-06-07 11:57:45 UTC

  This comment is jointly authored by Stephen G. Cecchetti and Sir Paul M.W. Tucker . Central banks have been reinvented over the past decade, first in response to the financial crisis, and then as a consequence of Covid-19. While trying to maintain monetary stability and promote economic recovery, their balance sheets have ballooned. In 2007, the central banks in the United States, euro area, United Kingdom, and Japan had total assets from 6% to 20% of nominal GDP. By the end of 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet was 34% of GDP, the ECB’s 59%, the Bank of England’s 40%, and the Bank of Japan’s 127%. [...]

2021-06-06

• Week in review – science edition
  by ? in Climate Science, 2021-06-06 22:07:30 UTC

  by Judith Curry A few things that caught my eye these past few weeks. A new study finds a large, previously unknown contribution to climate change through human conversion of peatlands for agriculture [link] Accelerating deployment of offshore [...]

• Week in review – science edition
  by ? in Iowa Climate, 2021-06-06 18:36:51 UTC

  by Judith Curry A few things that caught my eye these past few weeks. A new study finds a large, previously unknown contribution to climate change through human conversion of peatlands for agriculture [link] Accelerating deployment of offshore wind energ [...]

• Week in review – science edition
  by ? in Climate Etc., 2021-06-06 18:20:48 UTC

  by Judith Curry A few things that caught my eye these past few weeks. A new study finds a large, previously unknown contribution to climate change through human conversion of peatlands for agriculture [link] Accelerating deployment of offsho [...]

2021-06-03

• Do Energy Efficiency Improvements Reduce Energy Use? Empirical Evidence on the Economy-Wide Rebound Effect in Europe and the United States
  by noreply@blogger.com (David Stern) in Stochastic Trend, 2021-06-03 04:36:00 UTC

  We have just posted a new working paper on RePEc and SSRN extending our structural vector autoregression methodology for estimating the economy-wide rebound effect and applying it to several European countries as well as the United States. I coauthored the paper with Anne Berner at University of Göttingen, Stephan Bruns at Hasselt University, and Alessio Moneta at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa.  We developd this approach as part of our DP16 Australian Research Council funded project on energy efficiency. This is a multivariate time series model using time series for energy u [...]

2021-05-31

• The Macroeconomic Effects of a Carbon Tax to Meet the U.S. Paris Agreement Target: The Role of Firm Creation and Technology Adoption
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-05-31 21:39:06 UTC

  By Alan Finkelstein Shapiro and Gilbert Metcalf http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemwp:311095&r=dge We analyze the quantitative labor market and aggregate effects of a carbon tax in a framework with pollution externalities and equilibrium unemployment. Our model incorporates endogenous labor force participation and two margins of adjustment influenced by carbon taxes: firm creation and green production-technology adoption. A carbon-tax policy that reduces carbon emissions by 35 percent – roughly the emissions reductions that will be required under the Biden Administration’s new commitment und [...]

• Climate Finance
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2021-05-31 11:38:10 UTC

  Investors don’t have the consistent, comparable and reliable disclosure that they need to efficiently price risk and allocate capital, and issuers likewise are beset by numerous and sometimes conflicting demands for information under the various voluntary frameworks or in the form of bespoke requests from investors, raters and others.” SEC Commissioner Allison Herren Lee,  Remarks to Stern Volatility and Risk Institute Conference , April 30, 2021. Climate change is the topic of the day. The World Meteorological Organization tells us that the 2011-20 decade was the warmest on record . Earlier t [...]

• Fractional reserve banks create money / liquidity?
  by Ralph Musgrave in Ralphonomics, 2021-05-31 11:00:00 UTC

    Douglas Diamond, Philip Dybvig and Raghuram Rajan have claimed over the years that while fractional reserve banking gives rise to bank fragility and bank failures (not to mention bank crises like the 2007/8 one which lead to tens of millions losing their jobs worldwide) there is at least the compensating advantage that fractional reserve creates money / liquidity. See abstract of their NBER working paper No 7430. Unfortunately there’s a flaw in that argument which is that governments and central banks can create any amount of money any time simply by pressing buttons on computer keyboards an [...]

2021-05-29

• more air for MCMC
  by xi'an in R-bloggers, 2021-05-29 22:21:35 UTC

  [This article was first published on R – Xi'an's Og , and kindly contributed to R-bloggers ]. (You can report issue about the content on this page here ) Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't. A ki Vehtari, Andrew Gelman, Dan Simpson, Bob Carpenter, and Paul-Christian Bürkner have just published a Bayesian Analysis paper about using an improved R factor for MCMC convergence assessment. From the early days of MCMC, convergence assessment has been a recurring (and recurrent!) question in the community. First leading to a flurry of p [...]

2021-05-28

• Closing the gap between innovation and development in the Philippines
  by Kristoffer Daniel Li in East Asia Forum, 2021-05-28 12:00:45 UTC

  Author: Kristoffer Daniel Tan Li, GRIPS The Philippines celebrated its first National Innovation Day on 21 April 2021. By global measures, there is much to be celebrated: the Global Innovation Index (GII) ranked the Philippines as the 50th most innovative economy in 2020 — up from 100th in 2014. Among the world’s lower-middle-income economies, the Philippines ranks 4th behind Vietnam, Ukraine and India, with above average performance in business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs. But innovation’s promise to deliver superior economic performance and development outcomes remains [...]

• Cautionary Tales – Do NOT pass GO!
  by Tim Harford in Undercover Economist, 2021-05-28 05:05:00 UTC

  (Self promotion: the paperback of  How To Make the World Add Up  is now out worldwide (except North America). Please consider an early order, which is disproportionately helpful in winning interest and support for the book. Thank you!) The woman who was key to the creation of Monopoly was denied of her share of the credit and the profits.  Lizzie J. Magie (played by Helena Bonham Carter) should be celebrated as the inventor of what would become Monopoly – but her role in creating the smash hit board game was cynically ignored, even though she had a patent. Discrimination has [...]

2021-05-26

• Trade Credit and Sectoral Comovement during the Great Recession
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2021-05-26 23:17:01 UTC

  By Jorge Miranda-Pinto and Gang Zhang http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uqmrg6:47&r=dge We show that, unlike any other recession after World War II, sectoral output comovement significantly increased during the Great Recession. On the other hand, trade credit supply, as measured by the ratio of account receivables to the total value of outputs, collapsed during the Great Recession. We show that sectoral comovement was larger for sectors connected through trade credit. We then develop a multisector model with occasionally binding credit constraints and endogenous supply of trade credit to explai [...]

• Book Review: Star Trek, History and Us: Reflections of the Present and Past Throughout the Franchise by A.J. Black. McFarland, 2021
  by Jason Barr in Skynomics Blog, 2021-05-26 12:29:04 UTC

  Jason M. Barr            May 26, 2021 Peace on Earth In the 23 rd century, humanity has finally found peace. The hatred and violence inflicted upon each other for millennia are finally gone. From the ashes of war and conflict and through the beneficial use of technology, Planet Earth is united into one global nation. Its people are now free to explore themselves and the rest of the galaxy. Such was the inheritance bequeathed to us from the mind of Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), who, with no minor difficulty, created  Star Trek  in 1966. The universe he initiated would live long and prosper. Sta [...]

2021-05-25

• Così l’invecchiamento abbassa i tassi di interesse
  by Andrea Papetti in La Voce, 2021-05-25 21:55:46 UTC

  L’invecchiamento della popolazione spinge al ribasso i tassi di interesse reali. La crescente scarsità della forza lavoro riduce infatti la domanda di investimenti, mentre l’allungamento dell’aspettativa di vita porta le famiglie a risparmiare di più. Due fenomeni paralleli La maggior parte delle economie avanzate è da decenni su un sentiero difficilmente deviabile di decrescita dei tassi di natalità e mortalità, un fenomeno di lungo periodo che la pandemia non ha arrestato, come l’ Istat ha recentemente chiarito per l’Italia. Secondo le proiezioni delle Nazioni Unite (che tengono conto di pos [...]

• Parents: My child may need to repeat a grade
  by Joanne in Linking and Thinking on Education by Joanne Jacobs, 2021-05-25 16:45:51 UTC

  Failure rates have soared this school year due to remote, part-time and interrupted education, writes Catherine Gewertz in Education Week . How many students will be held back? “Many parents want the option of holding their kids back,” she writes. “In a March poll by the National Parents Union, 63 percent said they wanted their schools to let them decide whether to move their children to the next grade.” Retention is controversial, but “some studies show that holding elementary students back can work , but only if they get key supports, such as tutoring, summer programs, or high-quality teach [...]

2021-05-21

• Apart but Connected: Online Tutoring and Student Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2021-05-21 20:10:08 UTC

  By: Carlana, Michela ;  La Ferrara, Eliana Abstract: In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the governments of most countries ordered the closure of schools, potentially exacerbating existing learning gaps. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention implemented in Italian middle schools that provides free individual tutoring online to disadvantaged students during lock-down. Tutors are university students who volunteer for 3 to 6 hours per week. They were randomly assigned to middle school students, from a list of potential beneficiaries compiled by school principals. Using orig [...]

• A Policy Matrix for Inclusive Prosperity
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2021-05-21 20:07:57 UTC

  By: Dani Rodrik ;  Stefanie Stantcheva Abstract: One of the biggest challenges that countries face today is the very unequal distributions of opportunities, resources, income and wealth across people. Inclusive prosperity – whereby many people from different backgrounds can benefit from economic growth, new technologies, and the fruits of globalization – remains elusive. To address these issues, societies face choices among many different policies and institutional arrangements to try to ensure a proper supply of productive jobs and activities, as well as access to education, financial means, [...]

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