I just read paper The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks by Christina Romer and David Romer. It’s in the June 2010 issue of The American Economic Review (AER), the industry’s top peer-reviewed journal. Being in the AER is a guarantee that the paper is rigorous . . . → Read More: I’m Confused

I discussed three stylized possible equilibria for the United States economy in a July 18 blog. The best equilibrium, one with rapid job and GDP growth and low inflation was relegated to an unlikely possibility at this time. The worst equilibrium of the three, the “bad-deflation” scenario, was one where debt-laden and cash-strapped consumers . . . → Read More: Multiple-Equilibria in the United States Economy

Bloomberg has the following headline and article:

“Home Vacancies Rise as U.S. Ownership Falls to Lowest in Decade.”

Most will take this as bad news, and it is, but not for the reasons many will think.  Most will lament the decline in home ownership, as if it is somehow a slide away from the . . . → Read More: Correct, For the Wrong Reasons

I hope we’re a bit farther along than this, but maybe not:

“epidemiology in the nineteenth century was much like economics in the twentieth century: a subject of intense public interest and concern, in which theories abounded but where the scope for controlled experiment was limited”  Cooper