Although Forbes magazine regularly opines that US government debt is at crisis levels, most Americans don’t seem to care these days. If we divide up the total government debt by the population and adjust for inflation (using the 2018 value of the dollar),…
Blog Archives
International trade and immigration have been getting more popular since Trump was elected
Today Trump and his allies on Fox News claimed to have replaced NAFTA. In reality, his deal only affects a tiny amount of NAFTA trade and legally only Congress can repeal NAFTA. But Trump’s announcement demonstrates his desire to show…
Posted in Globalization & International, Labor
Radical political ideas that could make the world better but can’t get political support
Henry George promoted a revolutionary plan for the tax system that economists generally agree would be more fair and efficient, but 120 years after his death, still (almost) nobody cares about his great idea. Pigouvian taxes are another idea beloved…
Posted in Managerial Micro, Public Finance
Policing crime vs immigration?
Do you fear crime? Do you fear terrorism? Do you feel safe? It turns out that the government is much more afraid of immigrant groundskeepers and farm workers than terrorists or violent criminals: Congress… has elected to spend more than…
Posted in Labor, Public Finance
Rising dominance of fewer corporate behemoths.
The number of publically traded corporations used to grow with the US population as you might expect. More people means more customers and more workers which creates opportunities for more corporations. But the number of public corporations peaked in 1996…
Posted in Managerial Micro, Public Finance
Info technology has made land use data fun
Dave Merrill and Lauren Leatherby wrote a wonderful article at Bloomberg with a set of maps showing land use in the USA. They did a great job of taking public datasets and displaying the information in a fun way that…
Posted in Public Finance
Data proves July is the best month to buy apparel online!
Austan Goolsbee and Peter Klenow compared overall inflation (red line) with inflation for goods that are sold online. They controlled for the fact that many goods like housing and fresh produce cannot be easily delivered by online vendors by matching…
Posted in Managerial Micro
Medianism 