Elite versus Average - US Universities

An interesting point from a recent NYTIMES article:

“America’s perceived international dominance of higher education, by contrast, rests largely on global rankings of top universities. According to a recent ranking by the London-based Times Higher Education, 18 of the world’s top 25 universities are American. Similarly, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, published annually by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, gives us 19 of 25.

But there is a problem with this way of thinking. When President Obama has said, “We have the best universities,” he has not meant: “Our universities are, on average, the best” — even though that’s what many people hear. He means, “Of the best universities, most are ours.” The distinction is important.”

Related post:

http://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2014/04/fatal-flaws-in-us-higher-education.html

Interesting Items 6/26

Puerto Rico – America’s Own Tax Haven

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-26/puerto-rico-tax-haven-for-americas-super-rich

Google’s Mobile Division Chief – Interesting Profile

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-24/googles-sundar-pichai-king-of-android-master-of-mobile-profile

Enabling Global Access to the World’s Best Tea: Technology and fresh business techniques shake-up a staid industry:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/as-indias-teas-gain-fans-seeking-a-faster-way-to-get-it-to-them/

Fascinating WSJ article – Bringing Jobs Back to U.S. Is Bruising Task – notes:

 “Crib maker Stanley Furniture Co. misjudged the willingness of Americans to pay more for domestically produced goods when cheaper imports are available, for example. Meanwhile, the husband-and-wife entrepreneurs who founded 20-year-old Chesapeake Bay Candle have struggled to find workers who can do basic math.”

Economics of Higher Education

Will Technology Finally Disrupt Higher Education

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21605906-cost-crisis-changing-labour-markets-and-new-technology-will-turn-old-institution-its

Returns to Education – Cross-Country Variations

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21605909-returns-investing-university-education-vary-enormously-wealth

US 2014 Q1 GDP

US 2014 Q1 Real GDP Growth Rate Estimates:

There is serious discrepancy between the advance estimate and the third estimate.

Source: BEA

Related:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-25/economy-in-u-s-shrank-in-first-quarter-by-most-in-five-years.html

Cross-Country GDP Comparisons

An interesting NBER working paper:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w20244.pdf

Trying to Understand the PPPs in ICP2011: Why are the Results so Different?

Angus Deaton, Bettina Aten

NBER Working Paper No. 20244
:

The 2011 round of the International Comparison Program (ICP) has published a set of purchasing power parities (PPPs) that are sharply different from those that were expected from extrapolation of the 2005 round. In particular, the world in 2011 looks sharply more equal than previously calculated, because consumption and GDP in most poor countries were revised upward relative to the U.S. and other rich countries. Here we attempt to find out what happened. It is first noted that the 2005 round was itself sharply different from what was then expected, and made the world much less equal. We argue that the 2011 round is superior to the 2005 round, and that many of the changes in 2011 undo what happened in 2005. We identify a likely source of the problem, which is the way that the regions of the ICP were linked in 2005. We use two different methods for measuring the size of the effect. Both suggest that the 2005 PPPs for consumption for countries in Asia (excluding Japan), Western Asia, and Africa were overstated by between 20 to 30 percent. If these results are correct, they call for substantive backward revision of international comparisons, as well as estimates of global poverty and inequality.

Earlier post on the topic:

http://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-ppp-exchange-rate-based-comparisons.html