First let’s look at the economic fundamentals right now: GDP has crashed by more than it has since the Great Depression due to a pandemic with no end in sight. Unemployment is higher than it has ever been since the…
Blog Archives
I sold my stocks. I’m an economist who usually doesn’t believe in market timing, but the market looks irrationally exuberant right now.
Posted in Macro
Black lives matter more in countries with fewer guns. Even most police don’t need guns.
As I’ve written before, I’m not a gun-control advocate because there are lots of other factors that can reduce violence that are more politically feasible. For example, Franklin Zimring has numerous suggestions for how to change the rules of engagement…
Posted in Discrimination, Violence & Peace
Prejudice is inefficient and often hurts the people with the prejudices — sometimes as much or more than their targets.
Posted in Discrimination, Inequality
Long-term trends in manufacturing, farming, and protectionism
Peter Drucker was one the most influential management scholars of the 20th century. In 2000 he wrote a special report for The Economist magazine to think about changes over the 20th century and looking towards the 21st. The 20th century…
Posted in Globalization & International
Some basic economics of the covid-19 pandemic
In 2007, the St. Louis Fed summarized research about the 1918 influenza pandemic and used it to predict what would happen in a pandemic like the present covid-19 crisis. Their predictions have been pretty accurate. For example, the report predicted…
Bush and his team were SOOO much better than Trump and his team.
Once again I find myself longing for the good old days of the George W. Bush administration which was so much more honest and competent. And they weren’t racist nor corrupt. Here is Bush’s chief economic advisor on what should…
America’s covid-19 testing fiasco
Investigative journalists and at least one think tank are putting pressure on the American government to improve our shameful coronavirus testing capability. There is a great article by Brian Resnick and Dylan Scott this morning about it with this new…
Posted in Health
