Today’s parents are spending dramatically more time on childcare than their parents did. What’s more, this rise has disproportionately occurred among those with the most education.
A splendid graph, showing high-frequency data on water consumption in Edmonton during the men’s Olympic hockey final (on February 28), and comparing it with the rather smoother pattern seen the day before.
“Okun’s law” is a much-loved rule of thumb – it links increases in the unemployment rate with decreases in output. But is it broken?
Among 22-year-olds, there are 185 female college graduates for every 100 male graduates. This statistic, however, is a little misleading.
Jezebel, the blog devoted to “celebrity, sex, fashion,” has just referred to the “hippest-economist-ever Betsey Stevenson.”
With nearly one in ten American labor force participants out of work, it is clear that more needs to be done to stimulate hiring. Action is required, and I’m pleased to add my voice to those calling for a well-designed temporary hiring tax credit.
Yale’s business school just published an interesting interview with Betsey Stevenson-my favorite economist.
BBC News reports that British cat owners are better educated than dog owners.
My Wharton colleagues Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman have an intriguing new paper out that analyzes what it takes for an article to make the New York Times’s most emailed list.
An interesting finding from a recent Gallup poll, reporting on, well, reporting. There appears to be substantial excess demand for insightful reporting on economic issues.
My latest Marketplace commentary returns to a topic I touched on earlier this week: the fact that when economists talk about a “recovery” being underway they are talking about something completely different than when Joe Public says he’s waiting for the “recovery” to begin.
There’s some debate about whether the economy has begun to recover. The consensus among professional forecasters is that the trough occurred sometime in the second half of 2009. But it doesn’t feel that way — which is why the latest Gallup survey is so interesting. Gallup researchers asked regular people how long until they expect the recovery to begin, and nearly half think we are three years or longer away.
Earlier this week, Dubner linked to a terrific New Yorker piece by John Cassidy, which explores the state of the “Chicago School.” Following up, Cassidy has posted some very revealing interview transcripts. All the interviews are with truly great economists. The very best come across as trying to build insight that is both rigorous, and empirically relevant.
In the last couple of hours, the InTrade prediction markets have moved sharply in favor of the Republican candidate Scott Brown to defeat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race.
No. Let me follow up on yesterday’s post, with more data testing Nicholas Kristof‘s assertion that Costa Rica is the happiest nation in the world.
Perhaps. But perhaps not. Nicholas Kristof’s recent Times Op-Ed set out to explain why Costa Rica is “the happiest nation on earth.” This led my happiness coauthor Betsey Stevenson and I to explore further (which is why we are writing this post together).
The front page of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal tells us that “Economists are cheapskates.” The article by Justin Lahart is hilarious, recounting the foibles of those of us who sometimes take our classroom lessons about economizing a step too far – particularly when it comes to economizing on time.
My recent Marketplace commentary focused on the recent Sarkozy Commission report, which re-examined the usefulness of the usual economic indicators, like Gross Domestic Product (or GDP).
The report raises many of the usual shortcomings of GDP. And I agree with each of their criticisms. Much of this was summarized 40 years ago, in a famous Bobby Kennedy speech:
I’ve been waiting for a news story to come along to give me the excuse to post my favorite economics photo of the year. Now that the year is over, I figure I’ll just post it.
This photo illustrates the two most important forces in my life.
It’s an externality, stupid — so price it.
There’s a strange view out there that with unemployment above ten percent, and inflation nascent, the Fed should be thinking about raising interest rates. Yesterday Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser attempted to explain his view:
I’m currently back home in Australia for a couple of weeks, and just want to give a heads-up to the locals that I’ll be giving a talk at ANU this Wednesday.
One of the things I’ve learned from Levitt is that you need a thick skin if you are going to write about controversial topics. And since Betsey Stevenson and I wrote about “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” we’ve been called everything from left-wing fools to right-wing tools. But it can be a real kick in the guts when you learn that someone you thought you admired turns out to be simply dishonest. And that’s how I felt when I read Barbara Ehrenreich’s “takedown” of our research in today’s LA Times.
There are a few who consult to the Fed. I’m not aware of any significant engagement of these folks with the IMF or World Bank. Perhaps, with time, this generation (my generation!) will become directly involved in the policy debate. But until this happens, Narayana’s optimism about the state of academic macro won’t translate into equal optimism about the state of macro policy debates.
And so the debate about the state of modern macroeconomics continues. As the rhetoric escalates, perhaps it’s worth digging through the archives for real insight, instead. Here’s Robert Lucas in his 2003 keynote address to the History of Political Economy conference:
Economists see markets at play everywhere. Even in your romantic life. Indeed, I’m one of the worst guests that you can invite to your wedding. Why? Because while most of your guests are listening for your love story, I’m listening for your contract.
Marketplace, the economics program on National Public Radio, is running a fun series this week — asking economists to reflect on how thinking like an economist can shape your personal decisions. While the pieces are pretty light, it’s also a neat opportunity to teach some simple economics. Yesterday, it was my turn, and so I focused my economic lens on my marathon training. And thinking like an economist means thinking in terms of opportunity cost.
Justin Wolfers argues for more stimulus spending, highlighting a recent debate between himself and Reihan Salam on CNN.
The latest employment numbers are out, and they are dreadful. Those commentators who saw “green shoots” out there had been focusing on the fact that in May, the economy “only” shed 322,000 jobs, which is good news when compared with the fact that the economy had been losing over 600,000 jobs per month in January, February, and March. Squint hard enough at the black line in my chart, and you can see why many were hopeful that job losses were slowing down.
The latest edition of the Journal of the European Economic Association just landed on my desk, and the two lead articles are about “increased economic stability” and “the Great Moderation.”
Both are fine articles, it’s just that they now read a bit like economic history.
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