Finance and Growth: The Direction of Causality
Too much finance is highly correlated with slower growth. But which comes first?
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
Bill Black: Obama Loved Austerity and the New Democrats Remain Addicted to It
Black blasts Obama for prescribing austerity and presenting it as good for Americans when it is good only for financiers and the rich.
Read more...A Tale of Two Countries: Nigeria and the U.S.
How the US and Nigeria wound up with increasingly similar systems, such as centralized, presidential-focused politics.
Read more...Helicopter Money: Loved, Not Spent
Another monetarist myth bites the dust. Consumers overwhelmingly say they would not spend helicopter money.
Read more...More on the Economic Hardship of Young Adults
Young adults have had a very rough go and don’t have good reason to expect their economic condition to improve much.
Read more...The Fed in an Age of Uncertainty
How uncertainty over the wisdom of the Fed starting to tighten in 2017 and its reading of Trump policies might impact other economies.
Read more...How To Balance Sovereignty and Integration in a Voluntary EU
Why is the EU project in trouble and what might be done to fix it?
Read more...Does Immigration Boost Growth? A Look at Data From Around the World
Comparative data on immigration doesn’t support the tidy economists’ story that it good for growth…at least not recently.
Read more...“Many Areas of Appalachia and Mississippi Delta Have Lower Life Expectancy Than Bangladesh”
Four Nobel Prize winners agree that rent-seeking is the biggest driver of rising inequality.
Read more...More Brexit Delusion: City Issues Wish List That the EU Already Rejected
When you’d thought the British had reached the limits of outlandishness on the Brexit front, they manage to outdo themselves.
Read more...Lessons From the Demise of the TPP
Yves here. This post makes a point at the end in passing about the value of multilateralism, even though the TPP was otherwise a very bad scheme on multiple levels. This serves as a reminder to mention something I’ve neglected to say. Trump’s plan to enter into bi-lateral trade deals (after supposedly tearing up extant […]
Read more...Yet Another Glaring Flaw With Trump Infrastructure Plan: Dependence on Vagaries of Tiny, Slow-Moving Tax Equity Market
The oh-so-clever Trump plan to use tax credits to fund infrastructure spending means it will be too small and slow to provide any real boost.
Read more...Trump’s Win: America’s Failures of Representation and Prospects for Democracy
Looking at why Trump won and the implications for his presidency.
Read more...Robots, Universal Basic Income, and the Welfare State
“Robots are coming for your job” may be more scare talk than reality, but instilling that belief helps weaken labor bargaining power.
Read more...The Oil Supply Glut Is Here To Stay In 2017
Why oil prices will stay soft this year.
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