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RWER Poll 2016 The top ten economics books of the last 100 years Subscribers to this journal were asked: “What are the top ten economics books of the past 100 years?” The poll was open for two weeks in May and over 3,000 economists voted.  They could vote for up to ten of the books on the short list of 50 which had been compiled from the nominations submitted by Real-World Economics Review readers.  People on average voted for five books.  Here are the results.       Number of...

Going nowhere: Key June ABI highlights: Regional averages: South (55.5), West (54.1), Northeast (51.8), Midwest (48.2) Sector index breakdown: multi-family residential (57.9), institutional (52.7), mixed practice (51.0), commercial / industrial (50.3) Project inquiries index: 58.6 Design contracts index: 49.7 From the AIA: Architecture Billings Index remains on solid footing Buoyed by increasing levels of demand across all project types, the Architecture Billings Index...

The setbacks continue: As is the general case, this indicator rose with the oil capex boom then peaked with the collapse in oil capex, and remains in negative territory: Same here. Peaked when the oil capex boom ended and the 3 month average is still in negative territory: A bit better than expected for the month, but the year over year rate declined: This NY state revenue report is few weeks old:...

Four possible states of borrowers and lenders The discussion above suggests an economy is always in one of four possible states depending on the presence or absence of lenders (savers) and borrowers (investors). They are as follows: (1) both lenders and borrowers are present in sufficient numbers, (2) there are borrowers but not enough lenders even at high interest rates, (3) there are lenders but not enough borrowers even at low interest rates, and (4) both lenders and borrowers are...

from Norbert Häring On Monday the World Bank made it official that Paul Romer will be the new chief economist. This nomination can be seen as a big step back toward the infamous Washington Consensus, which World Bank and IMF seemed to have left behind. This is true, even though Paul Romer has learned quite well to hide the market fundamentalist and anti-democratic nature of his pet idea – charter cities – behind a veil of compassionate wording. Romer won significant academic merits with...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Ann Pettifor discussed how Phillip Hammond’s stint at the treasury will differ to Osbornes on Share Radio yesterday, with their regular economics commentator John Weeks. Listen to the full show here. 

Down again, and you can see from the chart that it’s most recently gone flat after ramping up a bit: Just another index that headed south after the collapse in oil capex: The euro area current account surplus continues to trend higher: Euro Area Current Account The current account surplus in the Eurozone came in at €15.4 billion in May of 2016 compared to an €8.4 billion surplus a year earlier. The goods surplus widened 16 percent to €31.1 billion while the services one...

from Robert Locke In a recent article,”The Milton Friedman Doctrine is Wrong.  Here’s How to Rethink the Corporation,” Susan Holmberg and Mark Schmitt intoned: “We won’t fix the problem until we address the nature of the corporation.” at http://economics.com/milton-friedman-doctrine-wrong-heres-rethink-corporation/. Egmont Kakarot-Handtke asserts that sciences of society make no contribution to economics because they are scientifically invalid — to which I replied that his assertion is...

from David Ruccio A new report from McKinsey & Company, “Poorer than Their Parents? Flat or Falling Incomes in Advanced Countries” (pdf), confirms many people’s worst fears. As it turns out, the trend in stagnating or declining incomes for most workers (including the middle-class) is not confined to the United States, but is a global phenomenon. Brexit and Trump are just the tip of the iceberg. Because of flat or falling incomes, many workers across the rich countries are...

Last month’s downward revision and the drop in permits make this report particularly negative. Again, looks like housing will be a drag on growth this year vs last year: Still trending from bad to worse: With the govt a net payer of interest, rate cuts reduce total interest income for the economy by that amount. But some of the effects are lagged, as indicated below, and are therefore still ongoing, as lower pension returns often result in higher contributions and lower...