The Angry Bear

Given the debate about returning to 60s level top marginal tax rate of 70% amazingly re-opened by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I decided to actually read the Romer and Romer paper (pdf warning) which includes evidence suggesting an even higher rate is optimal. It is a masterpiece, which I won’t try to summarize. Read it. I do however, want to grind a very old ax related to “Schlock Economics”. I am thinking of the time that Robert Lucas totally humiliated...

On Some Predictions I am not somebody who makes endo/beginning of year predictions, and I am not about to stsrt now.  But I have just read a guest post by Jeffrey Frankel on Econbrowser where he brags about making six accurate predictions for 2018 while not reporting on some others he made that did not work out so well.  I happened to largely agree with them when I saw him making them, with some questions on two, while myself quitely making some that...

I wrote a post about optimal taxation of capital income which (the web is sometimes wonderful) was made legible by the blessed [person who choses to remain anonymous]. But that was back in Obama center left 2008. I want to update given what I learned since then and given the appearance of socialist US citizens. First, what I should have known already is that the standard Judd 85/86 result that the optimal rate of taxation of capital income goes to zero...

Economic Growth and Climate Change: Mistaking an Output Variable for an Instrument When I first started arguing against the degrowthers, I thought they were a small, uninfluential fringe, important only because they had a sway over a portion of the left—what we might call the Naomi Klein left.  That was then.  Today degrowth is entering the mainstream, as can be seen by the latest David Roberts piece in Vox.  Roberts reviews a discussion between several...

On the government shutdown, Pelosi should go maximalist It’s pretty clear that the House GOP has decided to simply punt the government shutdown into the new Democratic House majority’s laps. That new House Democratic majority will have two basic options: (1) go accomodationist; or (2) go maximalist.  I am here to write in support of option #(2). To recap, before the government shutdown, the Senate had passed a stopgap measure by 100-0. When RW...

The author of this post which was published in April 2018 on Save The Post Office is Mark Jamison, a retired North Carolina Post Master. From time to time, I have featured both Marks and Steve’s post office advocacy on Angry Bear. Steve is a literature professor who teaches “place studies” at the Gallatin School of New York University. One of these days I will visit Mark in the mountains of North Carolina. “If they can get you asking the wrong questions,...

by Joseph Joyce Global Networks and Financial Instability The ten-year anniversary of the global financial crisis has brought a range of analyses of the current stability of the financial system (see, for example, here). Most agree that the banking sector is more robust now due to increased capital, less leverage, more prudent balance sheets and better regulation. But systemic risk is an inherent feature of finance, and a disturbance in one area can...

May this year be better than last.  Any predictions?

Cars: The electric car is becoming prominent China. China registered as many as 352,000 new electric vehicles (EV) in 2016 compared to 159,000 cars registered in the US during the same time period and mostly in California. Automotive analysts suggest China’s numbers could be inflated due to subsidy cheating: but, even the lower estimates remain higher than the US. Navigant Consulting puts China’s 2016 figure at an approximate 250,000, but, it expects new...