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Are used car prices bankrupting workers?
from Dean Baker The news media have been constantly hyping inflation in recent months. While everyone has been seeing the huge rise in gas prices over the last year (that’s what happens when the world reopens after a pandemic), used car prices have risen almost as rapidly. From December 2020 to December 2021 they rose 37.3 percent. This accounted for 1.03 percentage points of the 7.0 percent overall inflation in the last year. We know the story of these price increases. A fire in a...
Read More »Models and the need to validate assumptions
from Lars Syll Piketty argues that the higher income share of wealth-owners is due to an increase in the capital-output ratio resulting from a high rate of capital accumulation. The evidence suggests just the contrary. The capital-output ratio, as conventionally measured has either fallen or been constant in recent decades. The apparent increase in the capital-output ratio identified by Piketty is a valuation effect reflecting a disproportionate increase in the market value of certain...
Read More »Top 100 Economics Blogs
Angry Bear continues to make the Top 100 Economics Blogs from Intelligent Economist and Top 100 Economics Blogs and Websites from Feedspot (now for 2022). Econospeak (Barkley Rosser, pgl, Peter Dorman, Tom Walker) is in the financial section along with Bonddad blog (New Deal democrat) and Capital Ebbs and Flows (Joseph Joyce), and I am proud to say have a direct connection to Angry Bear (under general blogs…). Eric Kramer and Ken Melvin have...
Read More »Weekend read – Combatting global warming: The solution to China’s demographic “crisis”
from Dean Baker and WEA Commentaries There have been numerous news articles in recent years telling us that China faces a demographic crisis. The basic story is that the market reforms put in place in the late 1970s, together with the country’s one-child policy, led to many fewer children being born in the last four decades. As a result, the number of current workers entering retirement exceeds the size of the cohorts entering the workforce, leading to a stagnant or declining workforce....
Read More »Meat Loaf
from Lars Syll [embedded content]
Read More »Wealth tax
from David Richardson and RWER #98 To the extent they are taxed at all, capital gains are only taxed on realisation. In that way avoidance avenues can take place by simply not realising capital gains. The arguments against taxing gains as they accrue are pragmatic. It would be difficult to measure the value of assets each year to calculate tax liabilities. If capital gains are difficult to tax because they are difficult to value, then perhaps wealth should be taxed instead. Wealth could...
Read More »Open thread Jan. 21, 2022
2022 Godley – Tobin Memorial Lecture: Professor Paul Krugman, “The enduring relevance of Tobinomics”
The Review of Keynesian Economics is pleased to announce that Professor Paul Krugman will give the 2022 Godley – Tobin Lecture. Professor Krugman is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has also taught at MIT, Princeton University, and Yale University. Like James Tobin, Professor Krugman […]
Read More »Global labour landscape: public health and employment crisis
from Maria Alejandra Madi According to ILO, the COVID-19 epidemic was changed from a public health disaster to an employment and social crisis. The pandemic has had a devastating impact on worldwide public health, employment, and daily life. In this scenario, a lack of comprehensive policy initiatives exacerbates inequality and limits overall workplace growth. Among the most significant labor-market outcomes, we can recall: 1. Because many firms, particularly micro and small businesses,...
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