Martin Feldstein has written another Wall Street Journal op-ed (here’s an NBER version) extending his idea for stabilizing home prices. Steven Levitt has written about Feldstein’s basic idea before. The basic idea is for the government to provide low-interest loans to mortgage holders in return for mortgage debt: The federal government would offer any homeowner with a mortgage an opportunity . . .
Few people outside of academic economists have ever heard of the National Bureau of Economic Research (N.B.E.R.). Within the profession, however, it plays an enormously important role as an information clearinghouse. Through a series of well-attended conferences and the ubiquitous, yellow-jacketed N.B.E.R. Working Paper series (which, by my estimates, may contain more than 13,000 papers by now), the N.B.E.R. serves . . .
U.S. government cracks down on street gangs. (Earlier) Martin Feldstein discusses inflation, income disparity, and the housing market. The Ivory Coast tries a new tactic for tardy employees: be on time, win a house. Busy airports hire “sign consultants” to reduce traveler confusion.