Republicans are keen to sacrifice CBO’s role as impartial arbiter of fiscal measures on the altar of “dynamic scoring” of tax measures.[0] But there is no economic reason for restricting this approach to only tax measures.
“Asia and Global Production Networks—Implications for Trade, Incomes and Economic Vulnerability”
That’s the title of a book edited by Benno Ferrarini (ADB) and David Hummels (Purdue).
New estimates of the effects of the minimum wage
A large literature has examined the effects on employment of raising the minimum wage, with different researchers arriving at conflicting conclusions. The core reason that economists can’t answer questions like this better is that we usually can’t run controlled experiments. There is always some reason that the legislators chose to raise the minimum wage, often related to prevailing economic conditions. We can never be sure if changes in employment that followed the legislation were the result of those motivating conditions or the result of the legislation itself. For example, if Congress only raises the minimum wage when the economy is on the rebound and all wages are about to rise anyway, we’d usually observe a rise in employment following a hike in the minimum wage that is not caused by the legislation itself. UCSD Ph.D. candidate Michael Wither and his adviser Professor Jeffrey Clemens have some interesting new research that sheds some more light on this question.
And in Russia
Government borrowing costs are spiking.
How Come I Don’t Still Hear about the “Worst Recovery Ever”?
Just wondering — where is Ed Lazear when you need him?
Accelerated Employment Growth, Little Inflationary Pressure
Nonfarm payroll employment clocks in substantially above consensus (321,000 vs Bloomberg: mean 230,000, range 140,000 to 275,000), solidifying trend growth. Previous months’ estimates revised upward. Wages continue to rise, but labor costs in productivity adjusted terms are stable.
Keynesian Cassandras? The Sequester Re-Assessed
Professor Tyler Cowen’s anti-Keynesian manifesto has been ably discussed by Professor Simon Wren-Lewis at Mainly Macro. I thought what merited additional attention is Professor Cowen’s first assertion:
1. Keynesians predicted disaster following the American fiscal sequester, and the pace of the recovery accelerated.
A Farewell to Arms?
No more military Keynesianism after G.W. Bush?
A glut of oil?
The world is awash in oil, I’m hearing. The problem is, it’s fairly expensive oil.
Avoiding Lost Decades: European Edition
From Liz Alderman in the NY Times today:
Germany and France Aim to Avert a ‘Lost Decade’
The economy ministers of France and Germany called on Thursday for urgent overhauls and a series of investments in both countries to help prevent them and the eurozone from falling into a stagnation trap.