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Manufacturing jobs have a talismanic force in the politics of the US and many other high-income countries. The underlying belief often seems to be that governments of other countries have enacted policies that allowed them to steal US jobs, and that if the US government just got tough, the US economy could get those jobs
US government debt is climbing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates show that "debt held by the public" is 99% of US GDP in 2024, and projected to rise. Is there a point where investors around the world might hesitate to buy more US government debt? For example, at some point investors might feel as if
The idea of "geoengineering" as a response to the risks of climate change involves putting particles, probably sulfur, into the atmosphere to counterbalance the effects of carbon and other warming gasses. The idea is controversial. One side emphasizes the risks of tinkering with the climate; indeed, the 2013 movie Snowpiercer and the follow-up TV show
John Bangsund seems to have coined "Muphry's Law" in is "Scenes of Editorial Life" column in The Society of Editors Newsletter (March 1992). He writes: Muphry's Law is the editorial application of the better-known Murphy's Law. Muphry's Law dictates that (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of
The prominent biologist E.O. Wilson (1929-2021) was perhaps best-known for his studies of ants. His 1990 book with evolutionary biologist Bert Hölldobler, The Ants, won the Pulitzer prize for General Non-Fiction in 1991. They then followed up in 1994 with a more "popular science" (that is, easier to read for nonspecialists) book called Journey to the
Among the ongoing themes of the famous poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is are truth, the self, nature, the universe, and the arts. Less well-known is his actual and public advocacy for a water- and sewer-system in Brooklyn. Stephanie M. Blalock, Kevin McMullen, Stefan Schöberlein, and Jason Stacy tell the story in "'One of the Grand Works of
The Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is probably best-known today as the originator of taxonomy--that is, the method of dividing up animals and plants into different related groups. What is less well-known is that Linnaeus posthumously published a book in 1749 called The Economy of Nature. Moreover, he occasionally made extremely positive statements about economics.
Moving either within or between countries is often part of a life change that triggers substantially better outcomes. Take a half-step back from the current disputes in the US and the European Union about recent surges of migration, and consider the topic more broadly. David McKenzie has written "Fears and Tears: Should More People Be
Edmund Phelps won the Nobel prize in economics in 2006 for "for his analysis of intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy.” However, he has spent a considerable chunk of this time in the last few decades musing over strengths and weaknesses of capitalism and, more generally, a dynamic economy. Jon Hartley interviews Phelps on both topics,
Stephen Smith tells the story of how he lived in a walk-up building in New York City--that is, no elevator--which seemed like a good idea until he developed a health problem that made walking up stairs difficult. For awhile, he viewed it as just one of those inescapable problems. But then he visited relatives Romania,
Thinking back over the half-century or so that I have been paying attention to the US economy, I can't offhand remember a time when most people believed that the quality of American jobs was high and/or rising. Here's how Adam Ozimek, John Lettieri, and Benjamin Glasner describe the common complaints in their report, "The American
Janet Bush of the McKinsey Global Institute interviews Chad Syverson in "Unpacking the Mysteries of the Global Economy" (July 2, 2024, audio and text available). Does productivity growth just mean lost jobs? Janet Bush: There’s a perception that productivity means efficiency and lost jobs. I remember somebody said to me, “Oh, productivity—you’re fired.” Unpack that for
Here's my attempt to resolve all the issues of shared American identity in under 1,000 words. It was published back in 2013 as an opinion piece in the (Minnesota) Star Tribune newspaper. "Analogies for America: Beyond the Melting Pot"Timothy Taylor Melting pot or salad bowl? For decades now, these two contestants have been slugging it out in the
I published this essay in the (Minnesota) Star Tribune newspaper two years ago in 2022. 76 Theses on American patriotism It might be time for a reminder on what makes a patriot. By Timothy Taylor 1. Patriotism is love for one's country. 2. To describe patriotism, one can adapt St. Paul's comments about "love" in
When thinking about global energy consumption, and the closely related risks of climate change, it's useful to have some grounding in the basic facts. Here, I pass along a few figures from the annual Statistical Review of World Energy (June 2024). At a global level, the shift to non-carbon energy sources is more limited than
Tyler Cowen interviews Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel '01) on his "Conversations with Tyler" podcast: "Joseph Stiglitz on Pioneering Economic Theories, Policy Challenges, and His Intellectual Legacy" (June 26, 2024). It's impossible to go over Joe's monumental professional legacy research in a one-hour interview. As Tyler mentions, Joe's CV now runs to 153 pages, which "is neither
Claudia Goldin's Nobel prize lecture, "An Evolving Economic Force," has now been published in the June 2024 issue of the American Economic Review. Or if you prefer, you can watch the watch the lecture (with more numerous slides!) from the link at the Nobel website. She writes: Women are now at the center of the
When did the first recognizably modern markets for insurance emerge? Maristella Botticini delivered the 2023 Presidential Address to the European Economic Association. Drawing on a research paper written with Pietro Buri, Massimo Marinacci, she argues that insurance markets were born in 14th-century Italian maritime trading ("Presidential Address 2023: The Beauty of Uncertainty: The Rise of Insurance Contracts
Anne Krueger has a remarkable resume, including Chief Economist at the World Bank from 1982-86 (where she is widely credited with substantially upgrading the quality of published research) and First Deputy Managing Director of IMF from 2001-2007. She converses with Shruti Rajagopalan for about an hour about a wide array of topics in "Anne Krueger
There's no gain-saying that a substantial share of politicians and the public believe international trade is harmful to the US economy, and accordingly, also believe that enacting high tariffs or other barriers to trade will benefit the US economy. The argument has been ongoing for centuries, and I have no illusions of resolving it here.
The "Great Resignation" refers to a rise in the rate at which people were quitting their jobs starting in late 2021. It may look like much on a graph. This graph shows the monthly rate at which workers quit jobs voluntarily (thus, not counting retirements, health issues, or being laid off). You can see the
US federal debt (that is, the accumulation of annual budget deficits) has been rising sharply. Here, I'll sidestep the big-picture arguments about how this contributes to a slowdown in US growth rates and the risks of sustained inflation, and raises the longer-term risk of more dire financial crises. Instead, let's just spell out some facts.
Back in 1628, Ambrose Acroyd published a book called Tables of Leasses and Interest. Acroyd was an administrator at Trinity College from 1615-1625, including a role as senior bursar--the modern equivalent might be "chief financial officer"--for several years. The first table of his book focused on a specific situation: Acroyd’s unusual Table i envisions a
If you are someone from a high-income country, or even just a high-income city, and you travel to other places, you are familiar with finding that, at least sometimes, many items are considerably cheaper in the low-income country: food and meals, entertainment and even health care. As a result, $100 of buying power in the
Evidence supports the belief that if people had better access to jobs and income, they would be less likely to commit crimes. But there is a caveat. The reduction occurs in property crime--which, to be clear are more than 80% of all crimes--but not in violent crimes. Jens Ludwig and Kevin Schnepel describe the pattern
You will be astonished, gentle reader, to learn that the question of whether worker pay has kept up with productivity growth turns out to depend on 1) how you measure worker pay; and 2) how you measure productivity growth. Scott Winship considers the alternatives and issues in "Understanding Trends in Worker Pay over the Past
I have pointed out a few times over the years that the US has for many years relied on voluntary donations for blood, but on paid donations for blood plasma (for example, see here, here, and here). One result of these divergent incentives is that while I receive information about the need for blood donations
In a world with lots of problems and even more proposed policies to address each of these problems, it makes sense to study the possibilities--and then to prioritize policies with highest estimated ratio of benefits to costs. The Copenhagen Consensus think tank carried out this exercise and came up with 12 policies. A special issue
It sometimes feels to me as if issues about energy are all being condensed down into climate change issues. But energy policy debates should have three sides. Michael Greenstone delivered the AEA Distinguished Lecture on "The Economics of the Global Energy Challenge" in San Antonio in January. It's now published in the AEA Papers and Proceedings
The Columbia University campus, along with many other college campuses, has been convulsed in the last few months by slogan-chanting, banner-waving protests. Thus, I was struck when I ran across an address delivered by Frank Fackenthal, then the president of Columbia, on September 26, 1946, on the occasion of the start of a new academic
Last week, I posted about the attempt by the Minneapolis City Council to set higher pay for Uber and Lyft drivers, and the threat by the rideshare companies to withdraw from Minneapolis or from Minnesota as a whole if the law was enacted. The dispute seems settled, at least for now, and I thought some
The "labor share" refers to the share of income in an economy paid to labor. Back in the dark ages of the late 1970s and early 1980s when I first started studying economics, it was often assumed that the labor share was more-or-less a constant term over decades. But in the last to decades, the
Back in January, I posted about an article that was getting some attention in my world. Megan T. Stevenson is an active researcher in the criminal-justice-and-economics literature. She argues that when you look at the published studies that use randomized control trial methods to evaluate ways of reducing crime, most of the studies don’t show a
The Minneapolis City Council voted back on March 7 to require that ride-sharing firms like Uber and Lyft needed to increase the pay received by their drivers. Uber and Lyft both responded by saying that they would stop travelling to or from locations in the city of Minneapolis; Uber said that it would leave the
There are three "government-sponsored enterprises," commonly called GSEs, that play a big role in US housing finance: the Federal Home Loan Banks, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Perhaps the key similarity across all three is that when they borrow money, the financial markets perceive that the federal government is standing behind the loan--and so they
The obvious answer is that policymakers want research that supports their personal and political preferences. Conversely, policymakers don't want research that might pressure them to change their views. But with that central truth duly noted, situations often arise where policymakers have an overall goal, but the details of how to achieve that goal, or how
The "15-minute city" is getting some attention from urban planners. The idea is that everyone should be able to access the key destinations in their day-to-day life--work, food, schools, recreation--within a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or mass transit ride of their residence. Cars would then be unnecessary for many daily tasks. Most Americans do not
I have been the Managing Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives since the first issue in Summer 1987. The JEP is published by the American Economic Association, which decided back in 2011–to my delight–that the journal would be freely available online, from the current issue all the way back to the first issue. You can download individual
Lawsuits are still pending, but the current schedule if for a congestion pricing scheme to begin in Manhattan on June 30. An online issue of Vital City published on May 1 has a group of short and readable explainer articles on aspects of the plan. In the opening essay, Josh Greenman lays out the basics
Why leave a tip? You have already received whatever food or service you are going to receive. Maybe if you are a very regular customer, tipping could lead to better service in the future. But most people who leave tips do so even if they are stopping off at, say, a restaurant in a city