Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Higher wage growth for job switchers: more evidence of a taboo against raising wages? Yesterday the Atlanta Fed published a note touting the wage growth for those who quit their jobs and transfer to a different line of work, writing that: Although wages haven’t been rising faster for the median individual, they have been for those who switch jobs. This distinction is important because the wage growth of job-switchers tends to be a better cyclical...

(Dan here…better late than not!) by New Deal democrat A better name for The Kids Today: iGeneration You know the drill. It’s Sunday so I get to ruminate about all stuff that isn’t dry economics. The oldest member of the Millennial generation is 38. Not only do I not think that The Kids Today would want to be lumped with that age group, but their uncool parents are probably precisely members of that group! So what to name the generation that came after...

Paul Krugman demonstrates just how simple models can and should be. He presented a trade model on the New York Times opinion pages. He also apologised for extreme wonkishness, but I don’t think he had to. His aim is to find an example in which Trump’s tariffs on steel cause lower wages (also for steel workers). Here the trick is to make sure that everyone has the same income “not gonna get into income distribution today”. This means that a reduction...

by Joseph Joyce   A Guide to the (Financial) Universe: Part 1 A decade after the global financial crisis, the contours of the financial system that has emerged from the wreckage are becoming clearer. While the capital flows that preceded the crisis have diminished in size, most of the assets and liabilities they created remain. But there are significant differences between advanced economies and emerging markets in their size and composition, and those...

by Jeff Soplop What Happened to the Political Price for Lying? (Part 2) Recently I wrote about the political price of lying and how there is a serious disconnect between voters (including republican voters) saying they want honesty in a politician and how they act. My initial conclusion was that many voters are lying to themselves and so, consequently, end up lying to pollsters. With this in mind, the next question is this: just how dishonest are voters...

Can Nudging Become A New Road To Serfdom? Last weekend I attended a conference at NYU Law School on “Behavioral Economics and the New Paternalism, organized by Austrian economist Mario Rizzo and classical liberal law professor Richard Epstein. It included economists, lawyers, philosophers, and a couple of psychologists.  While there was a range of views present a theme for many and especially of the organizers was bashing the ideas about “libertarian...

Is the US economy booming? April 2018 update Back in January, I asked if the economy was “booming.” There’s no official definition, but based on my recollection of the two periods I have lived through that felt like booms, the1960s and late 1990s, the two times in my life that the feel of an economic boom was palpable, I answered in the negative. I considered a number of indicators of well-being, to see what stood out in those two periods, and concluded...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Thoughts on Capehart on Kagan I ì’m reading the Washington Post and note one very outstanding op-ed by Catharine Rampell which you should just read. She links to excellent summaries of social science research and notes that Republicans don’t listen to experts and aren’t reality based.But I want to write about a dumb op-ed by Jonathan Capehart. I’m picking on him partly to explain what is so...

February 2018 JOLTS report: positive trend revised away Last month I wrote that the January JOLTS report reflected very positive trends. Today they got revised away. As a refresher, unlike the jobs report, which tabulates the net gain or loss of hiring over firing, the JOLTS report breaks the labor market down into openings, hirings, firings, quits, and total separations. I pay little attention to “job openings,” which can simply reflect that companies...

A thought for Sunday: The Abyss always looks back, Presidential polling edition A point I have made about economic forecasting a number of times is that one can be an excellent forecaster, so long as one is a bug on the wall. Once a significant number of people begin to follow *and act upon* the forecast, to that extent it must necessarily lose validity. Take for example the yield curve, much in the news this year. So long as everyone ignores or excuses...