Month: February 2013
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Does Saving “Fund” Investment?
If this blog has any tiny claim to any important influence, it might be that anonymous and magisterial commenter JKH used the comments section here to first bruit his insight (both tautological and profound) that S = I + (S – I). He revisited that construct and concept again recently, and I’ll leave it to…
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Leading Economists Vote on Raising the Minimum Wage
I’m delighted to see the U Chicago IGM Forum ask a really useful, non-softball question. The panelists are evenly split on whether an increase to $9 would make it “noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment.” A 4:1 majority thinks that weighing the costs and benefits, “this would be a desirable policy.” I note how…
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Risk is Mispriced Because Money Managers Face no Risk
Here’s what risk looks like: Having to tell your six-year-old son that you don’t have a birthday present for him because you didn’t have any money left after buying food for the week. Telling your daughter she has to attend the semi-shitty local community college instead of the awesome out-of-state school where she was accepted…
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Reveal Your Preferences! Show Your Support for Accounting-Based Economic Modeling
If there’s one thing that distinguishes modeling by mainstream and neoclassical economists — and that is arguably their Achilles Heel — it’s their failure to come at the problem from a fundamental accounting, and monetary, standpoint. (That failure is understandable given the curricula in economics departments.) I know that many of my readers share with…
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Why do Republicans Hate Market-Incentive Based Solutions?
Contrary to what you might think, this new survey says that 69% of Republicans think that climate change is a “somewhat” or “very” serious threat. Table 3. Perception that climate change is a threat among Democrats (N=377), Republicans (N=306), Independents (N=389), and overall U.S. population (N=1089) in January 2013. Columns may not add to 100…
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Wow: Cooperation. Should Obama Get Credit?
We saw it on the “fiscal cliff”: enough House Republicans voted for the deal, along with most Democrats, to get something passed. Republicans backed down on the debt ceiling. On immigration, we’re also seeing the two parties working together to craft a solution. This feels like a possible sea change. Should Obama get credit? He’s…