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2020-08-12

• ‘Preference-based measure’ is misleading – can we agree on something better?
  by Nancy Devlin in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-08-12 06:00:08 UTC

  From time to time, a little puff of steam emerges from my Twitter feed as Paul Kind (one of the founding members of the EuroQol Group and a key figure in the development of the EQ-5D) objects to yet another paper describing the EQ-5D as a ‘preference-based measure’ (PBM). I find myself agreeing with Paul. Of course, this may simply mean I have become old and cranky. While nomenclature isn’t a very exciting topic, I thought it might be useful to set out the reasons why I think the term ‘preference-based measure’ (PBM) is unhelpful and potentially misleading. What do health economists mean w [...]

2020-08-11

• Dynamic General Equilibrium modelling of tiny countries
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-08-11 14:47:26 UTC

  Fiscal Policy Multipliers in Small States By Ali Alichi, Ippei Shibata and Kadir Tanyeri http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/072&r=dge Government debt in many small states has risen beyond sustainable levels and some governments are considering fiscal consolidation. This paper estimates fiscal policy multipliers for small states using two distinct models: an empirical forecast error model with data from 23 small states across the world; and a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model calibrated to a hypothetical small state’s economy. The results suggest that fiscal policy [...]

2020-08-10

• Density Forecasts and Density Realizations
  by Francis Diebold in No Hesitations, 2020-08-10 18:53:00 UTC

  Check out the interesting new paper below.   Of course I am a fan of predictive densities (e.g., GDP fan charts).  Usually I compare them to the "realization" (e.g., "published GDP").  But of course, as the authors emphasize, the realization is just a point estimate of true GDP, whereas in reality true GDP is itself uncertain and has its own density, which can be estimated (maybe...) from revisions.  Very interesting.  I wonder, for example, how predictive density assessments based on the probability integral transform (e.g., here ) would need to be modified to account for uncertainty in the m [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 10th August 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-08-10 11:00:11 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Health Care Analysis Volume 28, Issue 3 Health Care Analysis is a journal that I would like to spend more time reading. This issue contains the usual crop of thoughtful articles on matters of fairness in health care. Leading the way is an ar [...]

• PÃ¥vebesök förbättrar de mänskliga rättigheterna
  by Niclas Berggren in Nonicoclolasos, 2020-08-10 05:22:00 UTC

  Som läsare av denna blogg väl känner till är jag ingen större vän av Katolska kyrkan och påven. Icke desto mindre måste jag erkänna att denna kyrka och dess högste företrädare ibland kan föra med sig förbättringar i världen. Ett exempel på detta ges i den nya studien ”Pacem in Terris: Are Papal Visits Good News for Human Rights?” av Marek Endrich och Jerg Gutmann: Our estimated causal treatment effect of papal visits indicates an increase in human rights protection. This effect sets in before the pope’s visit, which can be explained by the pope’s ability and frequently demonstrated willing [...]

2020-08-05

• Truth, utility & education
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2020-08-05 13:10:01 UTC

  Katharine Birbalsingh, headteacher of Michaela Community School, says the Black Lives Matter movement is a distraction. I think her claim is defensible – albeit because it raises an issue many of us would rather ignore. The Times quotes her: The problem with getting angry about racism is it’s distracting. It leaves you with less energy to help you succeed, like working hard. This alerts us to a nasty conflict – between beliefs that are true and those that are useful. It is true that black people face discrimination: for example, the ONS says that Black Britons earn 7.7 per cent less than the [...]

• Abandoning a Paper
  by noreply@blogger.com (David Stern) in Stochastic Trend, 2020-08-05 00:26:00 UTC

  Now and then it's time to give up on a project. In September 2018, I attended a climate econometrics conference at Frascati near Rome. For my presentation, I did some research on the performance of different econometric estimators of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) including the multicointegrating vector autoregression (MVAR) that we used in our paper in the Journal of Econometrics . The paper included estimates using historical time series observations (from 1850 to 2014), a Monte Carlo analysis, estimates using output of 16 Global Circulation Models (GCMs), and a meta-analysis of t [...]

2020-08-04

• A replication database for economics and social sciences: The ReplicationWiki
  by repecblogguest in RePEc blog, 2020-08-04 14:43:54 UTC

  This is a guest post by Jan H. Höffler The ReplicationWiki currently offers a database of 4,484 studies from the social sciences for which empirical methods were used. It lists which of the studies have data and code available online. In cases where replications are known they are classified by their type and results. The topic of replication has become more and more prominent in the scholarly discourse in recent years. Yet, much needs to be done to make the availability of code and data more mainstream. To highlight how much work still lies ahead, even recent publications on the topic of repl [...]

2020-08-03

• Windowing, anti-competition and the Amendments to the 6th Edition of the Nigerian Broadcasting Code
  by Chijioke Okorie in The IPKat, 2020-08-03 15:33:00 UTC

  Earlier in June, Nigeria’s National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) published Amendments to the 6th Edition of the Nigerian Broadcasting Code (NBC Code amendments), after public presentation of the amendments to stakeholders in the broadcast media industry in Nigeria. The NBC Code amendments provide inter alia for web/online broadcasting, prohibition of agreements in restraint of trade; requirements for acquisition of sports rights; local content requirements and compulsory sub-licensing. The NBC Code amendments have attracted both strong support and critici [...]

• Has the U.S. Distribution of Wealth Worsened?
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2020-08-03 11:48:13 UTC

  “ [T]he ratio of the wealth of the wealthy to the wealth of the less wealthy …may reflect something about the adequacy or inadequacy of social insurance arrangements…” Lawrence Summers, comments at Peterson Institute panel, October 17, 2019 . Wealth inequality in the United States is obvious to everyone. The Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF) documents the glaring and persistent divide between rich and poor, confirming that ownership of financial and real assets in the United States has been highly concentrated for decades (see our earlier post ). The most recent 2016 [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 3rd August 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-08-03 11:00:00 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . PharmacoEconomics Volume 38, Issue 8 Leading the way in the latest issue of PharmacoEconomics is some ICER bashing. Mike Paulden thinks it’s time to abandon the ICER , while James O’Mahony provides us with some reasons to be less drastic. In th [...]

• The New DAC Method of Reporting Debt Relief as ODA: HIPC Redux?
  by ReibReisen in ShiftingWealth, 2020-08-03 09:01:00 UTC

  Donors have agreed on a new accounting method aid treatment of debt relief on 24/07/2020. At first glance, these are good news for Covid-stricken poor countries. Debt write-offs have helped in the past stimulate new investment and lower funding cost as a debt overhang has been removed, most notably via the HIPC and MDRI initiatives [1] . But to what extent does the new DAC method of reporting debt relief as aid improve funding prospects for the poorest countries? To help alleviate funding shortfalls among the world’s poorest economies, many of which are in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), internation [...]

• Columbia. Economics PhD alumnus. Milton Moss, 1962
  by Irwin Collier in Economics in the Rear-View Mirror, 2020-08-03 07:39:41 UTC

    The previous post provided a transcription of the 1986 syllabus for Milton Moss’s course at the University of Maryland “The Development of Economic Ideas” that turned up in the J. Herbert Furth papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. Since Milton Moss is hardly a household name, today’s post introduces the minor Milton as our newest entry to the Meet-an-Economics-PhD-Alumna/us series. His “greatest hit” appears to be the 1973 NBER volume that he edited, The Measurement of Social and Economic Performance . Fun Fact:  Moss’s father-in-law (Naum Jasny) was a renowned expert on Soviet agricul [...]

• TvÃ¥ Ã¥tgärder som pÃ¥verkar anställdas beteende
  by Niclas Berggren in Nonicoclolasos, 2020-08-03 05:22:00 UTC

  De två forskarna John List och Fatemeh Momeni har i två spännande fältexperiment undersökt hur anställdas beteende påverkas av två åtgärder: när företaget tar socialt ansvar och när företaget betalar lön i förväg. I studien ”When Corporate Social Responsibility Backfires: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment” undersöker de vilken effekt på anställdas beteende som ett explicit socialt ansvarstagande får. Resultatet: This paper uses a natural field experiment to connect corporate social responsibility (CSR) to an important but often neglected behavior: employee misconduct and shirking. Throu [...]

2020-08-02

• Les coulisses économiques des sites de rencontres
  by The Conversation in Contrepoints, 2020-08-02 03:35:44 UTC

  Par François Lévêque 1 . Un article de The Conversation Vous êtes en quête d’une relation durable ou d’une rencontre sans lendemain ? Inscrivez-vous à Tinder ou à Bumble. Ou encore, si vos préférences sont nettement plus ciblées, à GlutenfFreeSingles ou ClownDating. Les algorithmes ont remplacé les agences matrimoniales et la drague à l’ancienne. L’analyse économique s’était risquée sans données à échafauder une théorie du mariage, l’explosion des sites de rencontres a depuis tourné la tête de bien des économètres. Savez-vous qu’un mariage sur trois aujourd’hui aux États-Unis débute par une mi [...]

2020-07-30

• Are jobs in education still recession-proof? : Studying employment data in the education sector
  by ? in FRED blog, 2020-07-30 13:00:00 UTC

  The U.S. economy is in recession, and the unemployment rate is above 10%. But the start of the school year is around the corner, and teachers are going back to work. Historically, student enrollment in colleges and universities increases during recessions,* but what do the data on educational employment show us? Here, we look at two graphs—one for New York City (the most populous U.S. city) and one for California (the most populous U.S. state)—to see if employment in the education sector really is recession-proof. Both FRED graphs above show there was no noticeable change in college, univers [...]

2020-07-28

• The role of demographics and migration for the future of economic growth in China
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-07-28 03:33:58 UTC

  By Juan Carlos Conesa and Yan Wang http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nys:sunysb:20-08&r=dge China’s real GDP has been growing by almost 10 percent a year for the last three decades. For how long should we expect this spectacularly high growth to continue? We evaluate in a quantitative two sector model with segmented labor markets and financial frictions the prospects for China’s future growth under different policy scenarios. In our model the high growth rate observed in China since the early 1990s is fueled by the large increase in urban labor supply, because of rural-urban migration, and the eme [...]

2020-07-27

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 27th July 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-07-27 11:00:01 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . The European Journal of Health Economics Volume 21, Issue 5 Most journals are publishing articles relevant to the COVID pandemic, and this issue of EJHE is no exception. There’s an editorial on modelling and uncertainty in the context of COVID. [...]

2020-07-26

• Cyber Risk, Financial Stability and the Payments System
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2020-07-26 15:50:41 UTC

  “ I view cyber security as one of the most serious financial stability concerns facing central banks .” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren, January 30, 2015 . Cyber risk remains at the top of the list of risks to the financial system, and the financial system is well known as the primary target for hackers (see here , here and here ). In response, financial institutions expend huge resources on protecting their information systems—by one estimate , well over $100 billion. Yet, the losses may be even larger: a recent European Systemic Risk Board report suggests they could b [...]

2020-07-25

• Academic spotlight (I): Sterzi, Rameshkoumar and Van der Pol on NPE activity
  by Merpel McKitten in The IPKat, 2020-07-25 10:30:00 UTC

  In between chasing birds and lounging on her editors' desks, Merpel occasionally reads some of the materials that pass over them. Recently, she came across two academics publications that may be of particular interest to patent-oriented readers of IPKat. This post, therefore, kicks off a two-part miniseries, which will summarize both papers and offer a reflection. Merpel has selected these two papers because each was picked up by industry groups that (very) actively participate in the debate on the contours of contemporary patent law. Such strong interest in academic studies shows that a lot i [...]

2020-07-24

• Housing prices and credit constraints in competitive search
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-07-24 20:24:39 UTC

  By Juan Pablo Rincón-Zapatero, Maria Belen Jerez Garcia-Vaquero and Antonia Diaz Rodriguez http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:30623&r=dge We embed a competitive search model of the real estate market into a heterogeneous agent setting where households face credit constraints and idiosyncratic turnover shocks. Households can accumulate a risk-free asset to build a down payment and to smooth non-housing consumption.There is an inelastic supply of identical homes. The model is “block recursive”. In equilibrium wealthier home buyers sort into submarkets with higher prices and shorter buying t [...]

• Populism Returns
  by Don Boudreaux in Cafe Hayek, 2020-07-24 20:12:24 UTC

  (Don Boudreaux) Tweet Here’s a letter to someone who works for a most ironically named outfit. Ms. Robyn Shapiro American Economic Liberties Project Ms. Shapiro: I received today your mass e-mail detailing the many harms that Amazon allegedly inflicts on the American economy. With respect, the economic theory that motivates your colleagues’ findings was all the rage in the 1950s, but has since been thoroughly debunked – a debunking about which your colleagues are apparently unaware. Before they write again about such matters, I recommend that they consult the research of (among other schol [...]

2020-07-22

• The Adverse Effect of the COVID-19 Labor Market Shock on Immigrant Employment
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-07-22 18:06:38 UTC

  By: Borjas, George J.  (Harvard University);  Cassidy, Hugh  (Kansas State University) Abstract: Employment rates in the United States fell dramatically between February 2020 and April 2020 as the initial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated through the labor market. This paper uses data from the CPS Basic Monthly Files to document that the employment decline was particularly severe for immigrants. Historically, immigrant men were more likely to be employed than native men. The COVID-related labor market disruptions eliminated the immigrant employment advantage. By April 2 [...]

• Non Cognitive Skills and Childcare Attendance
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-07-22 18:01:29 UTC

  By: Daniela Del Boca ;  Enrica Maria Martino ;  Chiara Pronzato Abstract: While several studies have explored the determinants of cognitive outcomes, this paper focuses on non-cognitive skills, for which there is less empirical evidence. Non- cognitive skills have been recognized as important determinants of cognitive skills and later life outcomes. We analyze the impact of attending formal childcare at ages 0-2 on attitudes toward schooling and on the social behavior of children at the end of their first year of primary school and at the end of high school. We find that attendance of ch [...]

• Immigration, Legal Status and Fiscal Impact
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-07-22 15:27:35 UTC

  By Andri Chassamboulli and Xiangbo Liu http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucy:cypeua:07-2020&r=dge How do legal and illegal immigrants affect the fiscal balance and welfare of natives in the host country? To answer this question we develop a general equilibrium model with search frictions in the labor market that accounts for both the direct net contribution of immigrants to the fiscal balance and their indirect fiscal effects through their labor market impact. We calibrate the model to the US economy and find that legal immigrants increase native welfare, mainly due to their positive direct net co [...]

2020-07-21

• The Cultural Origin of Saving Behavior
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-07-21 18:00:09 UTC

  By: Costa Font, Joan ;  Giuliano, Paola ;  Ozcan, Berkay Abstract: Traditional economic interpretations have not been successful in explaining differences in saving rates across countries. One hypothesis is that savings respond to cultural specific social norms. A seminal paper in economics (1) however did not find any effect of culture on savings. We revisit this evidence using a novel dataset, which allows us to study the saving behavior of up to three generations of immigrants in the United Kingdom. Against the backdrop of existing evidence, we find that cultural preferences are an im [...]

• What Accounts for the Rising Share of Women in the Top 1%?
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-07-21 17:46:52 UTC

  By: Richard V. Burkhauser ;  Nicolas Hérault ;  Stephen P. Jenkins ;  Roger Wilkins Abstract: The share of women in the top 1% of the UK’s income distribution has been growing over the last two decades (as in several other countries). Our first contribution is to account for this secular change using regressions of the probability of being in the top 1%, fitted separately for men and women, in order to contrast between the sexes the role of changes in characteristics and changes in returns to characteristics. We show that the rise of women in the top 1% is primarily accounted for by thei [...]

2020-07-20

• Grace Li’s journal round-up for 20th July 2020
  by Grace Li in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-07-20 11:00:08 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Health Economics Volume 29, Issue 8 Accurately measuring the number of unauthorised migrants living in the UK has been a long-standing challenge for the UK Home Office. Estimates vary, however the Pew Research Centre thinks that there may be be [...]

2020-07-17

• Experts: the Caprice challenge
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2020-07-17 12:19:20 UTC

  What do experts know? This question arises from the reposting the other day of an exchange between Caprice and Dr Sarah Jarvis, wherein Caprice argued for an early lockdown and mask-wearing, only to be opposed by the doctor. In hindsight, it looks as if Caprice might have been more correct. Which poses the question, for economists as much as other scientists: how should we talk to lay-people? Here are some suggestions. First, know what you know and what you don’t. As Charlie Munger said , “it’s not a competency if you don’t know the edge of it.” Economists, for example, do not know how to fore [...]

• Nella crisi cresce il risparmio per precauzione*
  by Valerio Ercolani in La Voce, 2020-07-17 09:23:43 UTC

  Gli ultimi mesi hanno visto un aumento senza precedenti del tasso di risparmio negli Stati Uniti. In gran parte è stato generato dal lockdown. Ma potrebbero esserci anche motivi precauzionali, dettati dalle difficili prospettive del mercato del lavoro. Il legame tra tasso di disoccupazione e tasso di risparmio Per gli effetti del Covid-19, negli Stati Uniti l’occupazione è diminuita di circa 15 milioni di unità, con un tasso di disoccupazione che ha raggiunto quasi il 15 per cento in aprile. Nello stesso mese, il tasso di risparmio è aumentato di quasi 20 punti percentuali (al 32,2 per cento) [...]

• The OECD Development Centre in the 1990s
  by ReibReisen in ShiftingWealth, 2020-07-17 08:10:00 UTC

  This post is a follow-up to https://shiftingwealth.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-oecd-development-centre-in-1980s.html for the 1990s. If you have not done so, I recommend to read the post on the 1980s first. The focus here is on my time at the OECD Development Centre and on its bosses. So do not expect a balanced presentation of the history of the Centre. These are my personal perspectives only. Table 1: One female & six male heads of the OECD Development Centre, from 1983 Period Development Centre OECD Period 1983-85 Justus Faaland (†2017), N Emile van Lennep ( [...]

• How Large is the Economy-Wide Rebound Effect?
  by noreply@blogger.com (David Stern) in Stochastic Trend, 2020-07-17 02:35:00 UTC

  Last year, I published a blogpost about our research on the economy-wide rebound effect. The post covers the basics of what the rebound effect is and presents our results. We found that energy efficiency improvements do not save energy. In other words, the rebound effect is 100%. This doesn't mean that improving energy efficiency is a bad thing. It's a good thing, because consumers get more energy services as a result. But it probably doesn't help the environment very much. I now have a new CAMA working paper , which surveys the literature on this question. Contributions to the literature are [...]

2020-07-15

• Now Would Be a Terrible Time to Raise the Minimum Wage
  by Rachel Greszler in The Foundry, 2020-07-15 21:27:33 UTC

  Imagine that your monthly mortgage payment suddenly increased by 50%. And that it happened now, in the wake of COVID-19-related job and income losses. That’s what some policymakers are now suggesting lawmakers should do by raising minimum wages at the worst possible time. As unemployment is high , many jobs have disappeared, and the lowest-wage industries, such as restaurants and hotels, have already experienced significant business failures. Many that remain are struggling just to stay afloat. Lower-wage industries have been the hardest hit. According to a recent survey by Yelp , 35 [...]

• Star Trek and the Economics of Hate
  by Jason Barr in Skynomics Blog, 2020-07-15 12:13:07 UTC

  Jason M. Barr                  July 15, 2020 Captain Kirk : It exists on the hate of others. Mr. Spock : To put it simply. And it has acted as a catalyst, creating this situation in order to satisfy that need. –In “Day of the Dove,” Star Trek (S3:E7) E Pluribus Unum? America in the 21 st century is a deeply divided country. Looking back at the nation’s long history of economic growth and technological improvements, one might have thought that the political, social, and economic divisions among us would have been considerably lessened by now. There are, to be sure, many bright elements. Healthc [...]

2020-07-14

• Spurious Factor Analysis
  by Francis Diebold in No Hesitations, 2020-07-14 17:50:00 UTC

  This abstract definitely produced one of those great "ah ha!" moments, at least for me.  So obvious once someone points it out.  Thanks Alexei and Chen. I'm hungry for more. With I(1) regression we have: Q: When will regressions with I(1) variables not produce spurious results? A: When the variables are not only integrated but also co integrated. What is the analog here, with PCA?  That is: Q: When will PCA with high-dim I(1) variables  not produce spurious results? A: ??? (I'm not yet sure.  Maybe it's addressed in the paper, which I look forward to reading.  Cointegration should again be par [...]

• Why Sustainable Food Systems are Needed in a post-COVID World
  by IMFBlog in iMFdirect, 2020-07-14 13:00:20 UTC

  By Nicoletta Batini , James Lomax , and Divya Mehra Food systems are essential to economic activity because they provide the energy that we need to live and work. However, macroeconomists have long ignored them in the belief that the global agri-food industry, now highly mechanized, subsidized and concentrated, offers all we could wish for when it comes to food. 2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world’s food systems. 2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world’s food systems. In just months, COVID-19 shut down half the globe. Images of panic buying, empty grocery shelves and miles [...]

2020-07-13

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 13th July 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-07-13 11:00:06 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Medical Decision Making Volume 40, Issue 4 The latest issue of MDM includes a dozen articles on topics as diverse as preference elicitation, cost-effectiveness modelling, and clinical decision-making tools. I’ll just highlight a handful. The [...]

• The paradoxes of pandemics
  by Johan Fourie in Johan Fourie's Blog, 2020-07-13 09:00:17 UTC

  When a crisis hits, economic historians are in demand. The 2008 financial crisis made students of the Great Depression popular commentators and policy consultants. The swift and correct reaction by the US Federal Reserve was undeniably aided by the fact that its chair, Ben Bernanke, had written his PhD on the 1930s depression and the weak monetary response that exacerbated the crisis. The current global pandemic is no different. Now the historical analogy, of course, is the 1918 Spanish flu, an influenza pandemic that killed an estimated 6% of (or 300 000) South Africans and as many as 50m pe [...]

2020-07-09

• Reclaiming freedom
  by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2020-07-09 12:53:31 UTC

  We might be seeing a significant political change, with the left reclaiming freedom and anti-statism from the right.I'm prompted to say this by the Black Lives Matter slogan, "defund the police" which invites us to see the state as an oppressor. As Grace B [...]

• Advancing gender equality in Southeast Asia after COVID-19
  by Kelly Gerard in East Asia Forum, 2020-07-09 06:00:25 UTC

  Author: Kelly Gerard, UWA Economic crises have disproportionately negative effects on women and these gendered impacts linger long after markets recover. This was observable during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and it is being experienced again with COVID-19 — but far more acutely. Measures to stop the spread of the virus have decreased women’s opportunities for paid work. Women across Southeast Asia dominate sectors that are facing immediate losses of employment, work hours and pay — notably retail, textile and garment manufacturing, tourism and hospitality. In garment production , 150 of [...]

2020-07-07

• 2:00PM Water Cooler 7/7/2020
  by ? in Naked Capitalism, 2020-07-07 18:00:56 UTC

  ~ Today's Water Cooler ~ [...]

• Global real rates, 1311–2018
  by BankUnderground in Bank Underground, 2020-07-07 08:00:00 UTC

  Paul Schmelzing Paul Schmelzing is an academic visitor to the Bank of England, currently based at Yale University. In this guest post, he summarises his research on the differential between real interest rates and real growth rates over the past seven centuries… There is a lively academic and policy debate about whether a build-up of excess savings in advanced economies has created a drag on long-term interest rates. In a recent paper , I provide new context to these discussions. I construct a long-run advanced economy (DM) public real interest rate series geographically coverin [...]

2020-07-06

• Fed's big stick lets it speak powerfully
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2020-07-06 12:56:56 UTC

  The powerful stabilizing impact of the Federal Reserve’s COVID response is visible virtually across U.S. financial markets. Despite the deepest recession since the Great Depression, the NASDAQ is at a record high, the S&P 500 index is barely 8 percent below its peak, and U.S. equity and bond market volatilities are far below their March peaks. In addition, bond market liquidity has improved sharply, while investment-grade corporate yield spreads are now in line with their long-run norm. Even the trade-weighted value of the dollar has retraced roughly half of its March flight-to-safety surge . [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 6th July 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-07-06 11:00:00 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Health Economics, Policy and Law Volume 15, Issue 3 The articles that I’ll highlight from the latest issue of HEPL have come in pairs, on the topics of competition, public involvement in health policy, and international differences in HTA. R [...]

2020-07-01

• What Accounts for the Rising Share of Women in the Top 1%?
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-07-01 14:43:12 UTC

  By: Burkhauser, Richard V.  (Cornell University);  Herault, Nicolas  (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research);  Jenkins, Stephen P. (London School of Economics);  Wilkins, Roger  (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) Abstract: The share of women in the top 1% of the UK’s income distribution has been growing over the last two decades (as in several other countries). Our first contribution is to account for this secular change using regressions of the probability of being in the top 1%, fitted separately for men and women, in order to contrast b [...]

• Non Cognitive Skills and Childcare Attendance
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-07-01 14:40:37 UTC

  By: Daniela Del Boca ;  Enrica Maria Martino ;  Chiara Pronzato Abstract: While several studies have explored the determinants of cognitive outcomes, this paper focuses on non-cognitive skills, for which there is less empirical evidence. Non- cognitive skills have been recognized as important determinants of cognitive skills and later life outcomes. We analyze the impact of attending formal childcare at ages 0-2 on attitudes toward schooling and on the social behavior of children at the end of their first year of primary school and at the end of high school. We find that attendance of ch [...]

• Covid-19 and Corporate India
  by Anurodh in Ajay Shah's blog, 2020-07-01 05:44:00 UTC

  by Aakriti Mathur and Rajeswari Sengupta . India is dealing with a massive shock in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first case was reported in India on 30 January, 2020. By middle of March the disease had begun spreading rapidly across the country. To prevent the spread of the virus the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown on 24 March. The pandemic and the lockdown affected nearly all firms and sectors of the economy; however, there are likely to be significant heterogeneities. We propose a novel approach to identify firms that may have had greater exposure to the pa [...]

2020-06-30

• The Seeds of Ideology: Historical Immigration and Political Preferences in the United States
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-06-30 18:45:17 UTC

  By: Giuliano, Paola  (University of California, Los Angeles);  Tabellini, Marco  (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Abstract: We test the relationship between historical immigration to the United States and political ideology today. We hypothesize that European immigrants brought with them their preferences for the welfare state, and that this had a long-lasting effect on the political ideology of US born individuals. Our analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we document that the historical presence of European immigrants is associated with a more liberal political ideology and w [...]

• Employer Policies and the Immigrant-Native Earnings Gap
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2020-06-30 18:40:30 UTC

  By: Benoit Dostie ;  Jiang Li ;  David Card ;  Daniel Parent Abstract: We use longitudinal data from the income tax system to study the impacts of firms’ employment and wage-setting policies on the level and change in immigrant-native wage differences in Canada. We focus on immigrants who arrived in the early 2000s, distinguishing between those with and without a college degree from two broad groups of countries – the U.S., the U.K. and Northern Europe, and the rest of the world. Consistent with a growing literature based on the two-way fixed effects model of Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis [...]

• Aluminium can help to build the circular economy. Here's how
  by ? in Forum:Blog, 2020-06-30 15:03:13 UTC

  A circular economy could reduce emissions from the production of key materials by 40% in 2050 - and aluminium has a big role to play in this transition. [...]

• Così la giustizia lenta allunga i ritardi dei lavori comunali
  by Gianpiero Mattera e Carlo Menon in La Voce, 2020-06-30 10:25:40 UTC

  Anche gli appalti comunali sono condizionati dall’inefficienza del tribunale locale. Se i termini previsti dal contratto sono già stati superati, il ritardo si accentua. Una prova di più della necessità di una riforma organica della giustizia civile. Giustizia civile e ritardi nei lavori pubblici La giustizia civile in Italia è spesso considerata un freno alla crescita e alla competitività delle imprese . Secondo un recente studio , la sua lentezza incide anche sul ritardo nell’esecuzione degli appalti pubblici: le stime indicano che all’aumentare di un anno della durata media dei processi, i [...]

• How to deal with abusive patent enforcement within the EU enforcement framework
  by Neil Wilkof in The IPKat, 2020-06-30 08:47:00 UTC

  Kat friends Prof. A. Strowel and Dr. A. Léonard share their thoughts on how to deal with abusive patent enforcement within the EU enforcement framework. The IP Enforcement Directive (2004/48) was originally meant to fight piracy and counterfeiting, in particular in the field of copyright. However, at the time of adoption, no agreement could be reached on the definition of those unlawful practices. Therefore, at the end of the legislative process, the Directive was stretched to cover “any infringement” of IP rights – including patents. This all-encompassing scope is rather unfortunate as some [...]

2020-06-29

• The Macroeconomic Stabilization Of Tariff Shocks: What Is The Optimal Monetary Response?
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-06-29 20:30:56 UTC

  By Paul Bergin and Giancarlo Corsetti http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2026&r=dge In the wake of Brexit and the Trump tariff war, central banks have had to reconsider the role of monetary policy in managing the economic effects of tariff shocks, which may induce a slowdown while raising inflation. This paper studies the optimal monetary policy responses using a New Keynesian model that includes elements from the trade literature, including global value chains in production, firm dynamics, and comparative advantage between two traded sectors. We find that, in response to a symmetric tari [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 29th June 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-06-29 11:00:06 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . PharmacoEconomics Volume 38, Issue 7 A chunk of this issue is dedicated to research and debate about the guidance provided by the US National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) in their ‘Evidence Blocks’, which essentially constitute a value f [...]

2020-06-25

• From Farming to Female Empowerment
  by M Niaz Asadullah in Project Syndicate, 2020-06-25 11:32:31 UTC

  KUALA LUMPUR – South Asia’s record on gender equality is weak, to say the least. The region has the world’s highest rate of child marriage, and domestic violence against women is pervasive. Women are over-represented in unpaid work, and under-represented in the labor force, even in countries like Sri Lanka , which has invested heavily in girls’ schooling. Yet there is one sector where women are taking over: agriculture. This is an opportunity for women’s economic empowerment that should not be missed. As South Asian economies develop, men are increasingly pursuing employment in manufacturing ( [...]

2020-06-24

• Campbell: Relative Prices and Hysteresis: Evidence from US Manufacturing—Noted
  by ? in Grasping Reality with the Invisible Hand, 2020-06-24 17:00:05 UTC

  It was from economic and technological historians like Nate Rosenberg, David Hounshell, and my own great great uncle Abbott Payson Usher’s works that I first learned about the crucial importance of externalities from communities of engineering practice in [...]

• The OECD Development Centre in the 1980s
  by ReibReisen in ShiftingWealth, 2020-06-24 16:31:00 UTC

  The OEEC had been the European child of the Marshall Plan since 1948, the OECD was its North Atlantic grandson since 1961; the OECD Development Centre became its South oriented late-birth. Founded in 1962 at the suggestion of the then US President John F. Kennedy [1] , the semi-autonomous research-oriented institution was intended to serve as a forum for the exchange of policy know-how and as a link between OECD members and developing countries. Despite offers from the IMF (DC), Moody's (NYC), KfW (Ffm) and GIGA (HH), I remained associated with the Development Centre in Paris for almost 29 lo [...]

2020-06-23

• The Great Debt Cleanup
  by Daron Acemoglu in Project Syndicate, 2020-06-23 15:26:33 UTC

  BOSTON – With more than $7.5 trillion owed to external creditors, emerging economies’ debt-service costs are becoming increasingly onerous just when they need as much fiscal space as possible to confront the COVID-19 crisis. While there is a strong case for canceling much of this debt, many key players oppose doing so, arguing that it would limit these countries’ access to international markets in the future, thereby reducing investment and growth. In fact, the evidence for this view is fairly weak . Far from reliably boosting investment and growth, international financial flows are more likel [...]

• Two papers on the demographics of wealth and the real interest rate decline
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-06-23 13:57:52 UTC

  Intergenerational wealth inequality: the role of demographics By António Antunes and Valerio Ercolani http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w202009&r=dge During the last three decades in the US, the older part of the population has become significantly richer, in contrast with the younger part, which has not. We show that demographics account for a significant part of this intergenerational wealth gap rise. In particular, we develop a general equilibrium model with an OLG structure which is able to mimic the wealth distribution of the household sector in the late 1980s, conditional on its a [...]

• Das gefährliche Beispiel Spaniens
  by Markus Diem Meier in Never mind the markets, 2020-06-23 03:00:17 UTC

  Weniger Lohn, gleich bleibende Preise: Lohnkürzungen schmälern die Kaufkraft der Spanier. Foto: Keystone Im Jahr 2007 verzeichnete Spanien ein Leistungsbilanzdefizit von 10 Prozent gemessen an der eigenen Wirtschaftsleistung. In diesem Ausmass hat das Land mehr Güter, Dienste und weitere Leistungen aus dem Ausland bezogen als dahin verkauft. Ein Jahrzehnt später und nach schweren Krisen resultierte ein Leistungsbilanzüberschuss.  Der übliche Weg, um einen solchen Wandel hinzubekommen, liegt in der Abwertung der eigenen Währung. Doch das war für Länder der Eurozone nicht möglich. Der Rat währen [...]

2020-06-22

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 22nd June 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-06-22 11:00:03 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Value in Health Volume 23, Issue 6 The latest issue of Value in Health is bookended with two new definitions. Leading the way is a report from the ISPOR Patient-Centred Special Interest Group. The group set out to define patient engagement in r [...]

2020-06-21

• An Open Letter to Randal K. Quarles, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2020-06-21 18:01:15 UTC

  Sunday, June 21, 2020 Dear Vice Chair Quarles, Nearly three years ago, we wrote an open letter congratulating you on your nomination as the first Vice Chair for Supervision on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In that letter, we highlight the central mission of ensuring the resilience and promoting the dynamism of the U.S. financial system. Today we write to express our profound disappointment regarding the plans (expressed in your June 19 speech on “ The Adaptability of Stress Testing “) to limit the disclosure of this year’s large-bank stress tests. In our view, failure t [...]

2020-06-20

• Savings externalities and wealth inequality
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-06-20 00:40:02 UTC

  By Konstantinos Angelopoulos, Spyridon Lazarakis and James Malley http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2019-05&r=dge Incomplete markets models imply heterogeneous household savings behaviour which in turn generates pecuniary externalities via the interest rate. Conditional on differences in the processes determining household earnings for distinct groups in the population, these savings externalities may contribute to inequality. Working with an open economy heterogenous agent model, where the interest rate only partially responds to domestic asset supply, we find that differences in the ea [...]

2020-06-18

• Lockdown threats to capital
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2020-06-18 12:39:52 UTC

  Many economists agree that a premature lifting of the lockdown will not necessarily boost the economy greatly. As both Simon and Jo say, if people fear catching the virus they'll avoid shops and restaurants even if they are open. Which poses the question. Why, then, are so many on the right so keen to lift the lockdown? In part, the answer might lie in a useful concept of Michal Kalecki's (pdf) - their "class instinct." This tells them that a prolonged lockdown - especially combined with inadequate protection for workers and businesses - threatens the longer-term health of capital. The sooner [...]

• Thesis Thursday: Ekaterina Bordea
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-06-18 06:00:26 UTC

  On the third Thursday of every month, we speak to a recent graduate about their thesis and their studies. This month’s guest is Dr Ekaterina Bordea who has a PhD from City, University of London . If you would like to suggest a candidate for an upcoming Thesis Thursday, get in touch. Title Essays on the effect of immigration and assimilation on immigrants’ health and health behaviours: evidence from the United Kingdom and Russian Federation Supervisors Mireia Jofre-Bonet , Alice Mesnard Repository link https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/24194/ Why might immigrants be more or less he [...]

2020-06-16

• Disease and Unease in New York City (Part I): Mortality Rates since 1800
  by Jason Barr in Skynomics Blog, 2020-06-16 12:15:11 UTC

  Jason M. Barr           June 16, 2020 Pandemic 2020 On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. The first case appeared in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019. It arrived in the United States toward the end of January. On March 1, the New York metropolitan region saw its initial infection, and soon after, it became one of the world’s epicenters. The general response by governors across the country was to close businesses, schools, and other public institutions , and send everyone home to “shelter in place.” While the epidemic in New Yor [...]

• Ethics of Behavioural Science Policy: Nudge FORGOOD
  by Liam Delaney in Economics, Psychology and Policy, 2020-06-16 00:00:00 UTC

  This is one of a series of "living posts" that will updated periodically. See more examples on the right-hand side-bar of the blog.  The post below has been developed since 2015 to keep tabs on various discussions about ethical aspects of behavioural science and policy. I will continue to update this post through the next three years. The paper linked here (abstract below), co-authored with Leonhard Lades and published in Behavioural Public Policy, is an attempt to summarise what has become a very large literature on ethics into a framework that is useful for project development and training. [...]

2020-06-15

• The Fed's Crystal Ball: Looking Beyond the COVID-19 Recession
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2020-06-15 11:14:52 UTC

  “[W]e're not thinking about raising rates. We're not even thinking about thinking about raising rates.” (emphasis added) Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, press conference transcript , June 10, 2020 Over the past 75 years, no one has seen anything like the COVID-19 shock to the global economy. Nor have we seen anything like the swift, broad and massive fiscal and monetary expansion that followed. Nevertheless, the June OECD Economic Outlook now predicts that OECD economies will contract by 7.5% this year—more than twice as large as the decline in the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-09. [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 15th June 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-06-15 11:00:19 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Health Economics Volume 29, Issue 7 The July 2020 issue of Health Economics includes a variety of theoretical, empirical, and methodological papers. Of most interest to me is a paper on Sen’s capability approach . The authors establish a theore [...]

2020-06-14

• The Social Benefits of Social Capital in Fire Fighting Units Contrasted with the Social Cost of Social Capital in Police Units
  by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics, 2020-06-14 14:35:00 UTC

  Fire fighters in a city such as Baltimore have a better defined job than the police.� Fire fighters do not set fires.� They put out fires and save those at risk.� Fires occur at random times in random parts of the city. The quality of the fire fighting unit can be measured using;� 1. time until the unit arrives on the scene.� 2. time until the fire fighters put out the fire.� 3. total cost for putting out the fire. Each member of the fire fighting unit knows his role and the individual team members know whether other complementary members of the team did their job.� A KEY POINT.� Once the fire [...]

2020-06-12

• Some Thoughts on the 2019 JEL Review of My Co-Authored China Book
  by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics, 2020-06-12 01:08:00 UTC

  In 2019, Ian Coxhead wrote a tough Journal of Economic Literature review of my co-authored 2016 book Blue Skies Over Beijing: Economic Growth and the Environment (joint with Siqi Zheng of MIT).� �In this blog post, I won't comment on specifics about his review but I would like to restate our main thesis.� I hope this helps young scholars think about some open research questions. Our main thesis is that rising educational attainment by increasingly sophisticated urbanites creates an upper-middle class who demand blue skies.� Given that China has developed later than Japan, Korea, the U.S and Eu [...]

2020-06-10

• Unemployment insurance, Recalls and Experience Rating
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2020-06-10 23:11:56 UTC

  By Julien Albertini, Xaivier Fairise and Anthony Terriau http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02559317&r=dge In the US, almost half of unemployment spells end through recall. In this paper, we show that the probability of being recalled is much higher among unemployment benefit recipients than nonrecipients. We argue that a large part of the observed difference in recall shares is accounted for by the design of the unemployment insurance financing scheme characterized by an experience rating system. We develop a search and matching model with different unemployment insurance status [...]

• Historical lessons from large increases in government debt
  by GAILLARD in Eco Notepad, 2020-06-10 14:03:18 UTC

  Published on 06/10/2020 By Vincent Bignon and Pierre Sicsic Sharp increases in government debt have occurred in post-war periods. While inflation, albeit at times moderate, was the norm in the 20th century, this had not occurred in previous centuries, even though wars had led to similar increases in public debt. One of the reasons for this is that this debt was set aside in a sinking fund for repayment at a later date. billet_165_ve.pdf Chart 1: Inflation and government debt in the United Kingdom (1700-1950) Source: Bank of England In the public psyche, post-war periods are associa [...]

• Leçons historiques des fortes augmentations de la dette publique
  by Emeline in Bloc-Notes Eco, 2020-06-10 12:52:02 UTC

  Publié le 10/06/2020 Par Vincent Bignon et Pierre Sicsic Les fortes augmentations de la dette publique ont suivi les guerres. Si au 20ième siècle elles ont en général débouché sur une forte inflation, cela n’avait pas été le cas lors des siècles précédents. Une des raisons est le cantonnement de cette dette afin de reporter son remboursement dans le futur. billet_165_vf_2.pdf Graphique 1 : Inflation et dette publique au Royaume Uni (1700-1950) Source : Banque d’Angleterre Dans l’imaginaire collectif, les après-guerres sont associés à l’inflation voire à l’hyperinflation. Comme les [...]

2020-06-08

• Populismo fermato dal coronavirus?
  by Rony Hamaui in La Voce, 2020-06-08 14:09:35 UTC

  In tutto il mondo i governi più conservatori e populisti hanno a lungo cercato di minimizzare la portata della pandemia. Ma i cittadini sembrano premiare, almeno per ora, le amministrazioni che sono intervenute con tempestività e misure drastiche. Il virus divide gli Stati Uniti Se qualcuno ritiene ancora che le opinioni sulle questioni medico-sanitarie siano indipendenti dal credo politico è bene che cambi velocemente parere. A fine aprile, quando la pandemia aveva già colpito gli Stati Uniti con oltre un milione di casi e fatto decine di migliaia di morti, solo il 40 per cento dei cittadini [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 8th June 2020
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2020-06-08 11:00:08 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of the latest peer-reviewed journal publications. We cover all issues of major health economics journals as well as some other notable releases. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Medical Care Volume 58, Issue 6 The main interest for me in this issue is two papers on the SF-6D. The first paper describes the development of a new classification system based on the SF-36v2, using factor analysis, Rasch analysis, and testing [...]

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