Lyft, Uber and the 2019 IPO Mania

As IPO soars, can Uber and Lyft survive long enough to replace their drivers with computers?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/29/even-with-ipo-billions-can-uber-lyft-survive-long-enough-replace-their-drivers-with-machines/

How Lyft’s Ride-Sharing Business Works (And Doesn’t)

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/lyft-ipo-heres-how-its-business-works/585433/

“Lyft became a public company today, valued at about $24 billion, which is a lot for a company that’s never made money, might never make money, and in fact lost nearly a billion dollars last year.”

The 2019 IPO Frenzy Is Different From 1999. Really.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-2019-ipo-frenzy-is-different-from-1999-really-11553918401

Asteroid Impact and Dinosaur Extinction – New Research Findings

The Day the Dinosaurs Died by Douglas Preston

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

“The asteroid was vaporized on impact. Its substance, mingling with vaporized Earth rock, formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon before collapsing in a pillar of incandescent dust. Computer models suggest that the atmosphere within fifteen hundred miles of ground zero became red hot from the debris storm, triggering gigantic forest fires. As the Earth rotated, the airborne material converged at the opposite side of the planet, where it fell and set fire to the entire Indian subcontinent. Measurements of the layer of ash and soot that eventually coated the Earth indicate that fires consumed about seventy per cent of the world’s forests. Meanwhile, giant tsunamis resulting from the impact churned across the Gulf of Mexico, tearing up coastlines, sometimes peeling up hundreds of feet of rock, pushing debris inland and then sucking it back out into deep water, leaving jumbled deposits that oilmen sometimes encounter in the course of deep-sea drilling.”

Related:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/science/dinosaurs-extinction-asteroid.html

Healthcare in Emerging Markets – India’s Modicare Experiment

An Extraordinary Experiment Attempts to Deliver Decent Quality Healthcare to the Masses

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-26/the-world-s-cheapest-hospital-has-to-get-even-cheaper

“The Prime Minister’s People’s Healthcare Plan, as Modicare’s official name translates from Hindi, provides about 500,000 rupees ($7,000) in annual hospital coverage to 107 million families, their eligibility determined by the primary breadwinner’s occupation.

Critics have urged Modi to put the money into India’s shaky system of free public hospitals, but he argues that the country is better off relying on what’s already in many respects a world-class private health-care industry and that the government can’t afford to build enough facilities itself. Modi is trying to contain one of Asia’s widest budget deficits, and he’s allocated the equivalent of only $900 million for Modicare in the coming fiscal year. (Costs are generally split 60-40 between Delhi and the states.)”

Economic Opportunity in America: Insights from Big Data Analysis

Improving Economic Opportunity in America: New Insights from Big Data

Harvard economist Raj Chetty 

College Admissions and Student Preparedness

What happens after rich kids bribe their way into college? I teach them

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/what-happens-after-rich-kids-bribe-their-way-into-college-i-teach-them

College bribery scandal: professors respond to our anonymous column

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/30/college-bribery-scandal-professors-respond-to-our-anonymous-column

Kevin McLin notes:

“Many, perhaps most, of these students are also unprepared for college. They lack the academic skills that students should learn in high school, and in some cases, middle school. This is because our public schools are no longer doing the job they are supposed to do.

Additionally, we are trying to cram more students through college despite our lack of financial support for the K12 and public higher-ed system. We simply are not educating a huge number of Americans. This has been going on for generations. It’s nothing new and probably started in the late 80s or early 90s. It has become worse over time, though there are large variations from state to state. That is the real untold story. Focusing on the elite schools seems more like a distraction.”

Related:

Wealth and Access to Elite Educational Institutions

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/03/wealth-and-elite-education.html

How Do Students Choose Their College Majors?

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/03/how-do-students-choose-their-college.html

Qualifications for Obtaining High-Skilled Jobs

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/03/qualifications-necessary-to-attain-high.html

Wealth and College Admissions – UPDATED
https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/03/wealth-and-college-admissions.html

How Do Students Choose Their College Majors?

The most consequential, and least informed, decision that college students make

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/03/29/most-influential-least-informed-decision-college-students-make/

Greg Mankiw – Interview

Populism, Democracy and Economic Performance

MIT economist Simon Johnson notes:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/american-populist-reckoning-by-simon-johnson-2019-03

“Populism is an approach to government that relies on lavish promises that ultimately cannot be met. The most prominent historical cases since 1945 were, for a long while, mostly found in Latin America. There are always apologists who claim that a new source of economic miracle has been discovered. But the ending is always the same: some form of crisis and disaster. Populism today is again in the ascendancy, but now one of the most virulent forms is in the United States – and with the credibility of the central bank very much on the line.”

Roger Cohen notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/opinion/israel-perfume-fascism-ayelet-shaked.html

“Representative democracy, mediated through institutions created to uphold the rule of law and protect civic discourse, is giving way to a form of social-media-driven direct democracy where the premium is on hatefulness. It’s open season on any democratic institution like the Israeli Supreme Court, or indeed a free press (a.k.a. “enemy of the people”) that is seen as standing between genuine folk outside of “elites” and their desires.”

As Britain flails, other European countries lose appetite to copy Brexit

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frexit-italeave-after-watching-brexit-other-european-countries-say-no-thanks/2019/03/29/7b6e059a-4be0-11e9-8cfc-2c5d0999c21e_story.html

Gen-Z and Corporate America

Corporate America Can't Afford to Ignore Gen Z

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-29/how-gen-z-s-different-than-millennials-companies-try-asmr-memes

Wealth and Access to Elite Educational Institutions

At $50,000 a Year, the Road to Yale Starts at Age 5

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-27/at-50-000-a-year-baby-ivies-road-to-yale-starts-at-age-5

The Economist on the university-admissions scam

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/03/14/american-prosecutors-uncover-a-huge-university-admissions-scam

There’s a reason that powerful parents scrambled to get their kids into the Ivy League rather than a rigorous, practical school like Caltech or MIT

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/admissions-bribery-scandal-pretending-degree-has-value-is-a-scam

Elaine Ou notes:

 “As any remaining illusion of a college meritocracy swirls down the drain, there remains one school where students are still admitted based on unadulterated academic aptitude: Caltech.

No bonus points for legacy applicants, nor for star athletes. Even if an underqualified student does happen to slip in, they don’t have an easy way out. The California Institute of Technology does not engage in grade inflation, and the four-year graduation rate stands at 79 percent, well below that of its elite peers….

As long as Ivy League alumni occupy positions of power, academic credentials will remain costly and scarce. Ongoing credential inflation is not evidence of a bubble about to burst, but a reflection of how successful the elites are at convincing the greater populace that degrees are valuable.”

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Interesting piece: $500,000 a Year Yet Struggling? Let's Do a Double Take

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/living-on-500-000-a-year-in-income-can-seem-hard

Noah Smith notes:

“Ultimately, living a happy life probably requires letting go of envy and appreciating what one has. But it’s also no wonder that so many Americans, even members of the elite, yearn for a more equal society. Even wealthy people might benefit from a smaller gap between the classes.”

HISTORY LESSONS - Consequences of the Little Ice Age

How the Little Ice Age Changed History

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/01/how-the-little-ice-age-changed-history

Related:

American colonization contributed to the Little Ice Age: Epidemics killed so many indigenous Americans that it changed the climate

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47063973

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261

Aging Population and Productivity

Impact of Aging Population on Labor Productivity

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/26/slower-growth-in-ageing-economies-is-not-inevitable

Qualifications for Obtaining High-Skilled Jobs

From a 2014 interview with Google’s Chief Recruiter: How to Get a Job at Google

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google-part-2.html

“Your college degree is not a proxy anymore for having the skills or traits to do any job.

What are those traits? One is grit, he said. Shuffling through résumés of some of Google’s 100 hires that week, Bock explained: “I was on campus speaking to a student who was a computer science and math double major, who was thinking of shifting to an economics major because the computer science courses were too difficult. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load. That student will be one of our interns this summer.”

Or, he added, think of this headline from The Wall Street Journal in 2011: “Students Pick Easier Majors Despite Less Pay.” This was an article about a student who switched from electrical and computer engineering to a major in psychology. She said she just found the former too difficult and would focus instead on a career in public relations and human resources. “I think this student was making a mistake,” said Bock, even if it meant lower grades. “She was moving out of a major where she would have been differentiated in the labor force” and “out of classes that would have made her better qualified for other jobs because of the training.”

PhDs and High-Tech Jobs

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-27/american-employers-are-hung-up-on-hiring-ph-d-s

Bloomberg’s Noah Smith observes:

“Many of these good jobs require Ph.D.s. A survey by Paysa found in 2017 that about 35 percent of AI jobs required a doctorate. In finance, Ph.D.s are heavily recruited for top quant trading jobs — as a professor at Stony Brook University, I helped advise applied-math doctoral students who were aiming for that industry. Plenty of workers at top tech companies such as Intel have Ph.D.s too. And more Ph.D. economists are going to work for industry. A quick Google search reveals a vast array of tech industry positions that now require this most advanced of degrees.”

Wall Street Bonuses

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-27/wall-street-bonuses-aren-t-really-bonuses

Barry Ritholtz notes:
“… bonuses are big because the financial industry makes a lot of money and distributes a large share of the income stream to talented traders who might well make a lot of money in some other field. There’s a lot of competition for skilled workers and any pay regimen that didn’t take account of this would put the industry at a disadvantage versus those that did”.

Tyler Cowen on Automation and the Future of Jobs

Turkey versus Currency Speculators

Investors Scramble for Liras as Turkish Swap Rates Touch 1,000%

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-27/foreign-investors-are-trapped-in-turkey-days-before-elections

Schumpeterian Growth Perspective

Expensive Cities and Quality of Life

Tyler Cowen highlights an important problem:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-26/if-you-can-t-afford-the-rent-it-s-my-problem-too

“The political economy problem here again is that residents just won’t care enough about the quality of life in their city. A ride on the New York City subway system, or a walk through central San Francisco, will confirm the view that two of America’s greatest cities are grossly underinvesting in the quality of life.”

His analysis is, however, incomplete. Often missing in most studies of US economic problems is the near total absence of discussions involving potential lessons to be learned from the experiences of other countries. People in the rest of the world (where 95% of the population resides) are also dealing with issues related to healthcare, inequality, urban overcrowding, etc., and, yet, most American economists do not pay much attention to events/developments occurring outside US.

For instance, a simple question that Tyler Cowen’s piece fails to address is the following:  

Why is the quality of life better in expensive Scandinavian cities or East/South-East Asian cities (e.g. Singapore)? Is there something New York or San Francisco can learn from the experiences of those cities?

Supply-Demand Curves and the Importance of the Ceteris Paribus Assumption

A timely blogpost:

https://uneasymoney.com/2019/03/22/james-buchanan-calling-the-kettle-black/

“Demand is a function of many variables of which price is only one. So the inverse relationship between price and quantity demanded is premised on the assumption that all the other variables affecting demand are held (at least approximately) constant.”

APPLICATION: The Minimum Wage Debate Controversy:

An excellent primer on the minimum wage debate:
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/anderson-review/minimum-wage-primer-leamer

The Economist on the minimum wage debate:

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/07/08/economists-argue-about-minimum-wages

The Rigged Labor Market by Alan Krueger

http://www.milkenreview.org/articles/the-rigged-labor-market

Economists in support of a federal minimum wage of $15 by 2024

https://www.epi.org/economists-in-support-of-15-by-2024/ 

The Pro-Growth Minimum Wage by ROBERT ATKINSON

https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/49/the-pro-growth-minimum-wage/

“When the price of labor is high, the return on investment from labor-saving technology is increased because such an investment saves the firm more. This exemplifies the “Webb effect”—the theory that a higher wage floor leads to higher levels of efficiency.”

A Threat, Not a Theory by NICK HANAUER

https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/41/a-threat-not-a-theory/

China and Intellectual Property – New Research Findings

China’s Innovation and Global Technology Diffusion

https://files.stlouisfed.org/research/publications/economic-synopses/2019/03/08/chinas-innovation-and-global-technology-diffusion.pdf

A Closer Look at China’s Supposed Misappropriation of U.S. Intellectual Property

https://files.stlouisfed.org/research/publications/economic-synopses/2019/02/08/a-closer-look-at-chinas-supposed-misappropriation-of-u-s-intellectual-property.pdf

--

China and Its Western Critics

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/western-consensus-on-china-wrong-by-andrew-sheng-and-xiao-geng-2019-03

Biological Geomagnetic Sense [For Science Nerds]

New evidence for a human magnetic sense that lets your brain detect the Earth’s magnetic field

https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-for-a-human-magnetic-sense-that-lets-your-brain-detect-the-earths-magnetic-field-113536

Tech Companies Power Global Stocks

How Big Tech Has Powered Global Stocks

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-big-tech-has-powered-global-stocks-11552215600

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/23/investing/big-tech-stocks-nasdaq-rebound/index.html

WAAX versus FAANG versus BAT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-18/forget-faang-and-bat-there-s-a-tech-complex-that-s-up-220

Have the FAANG Stocks Got Their Groove Back?

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/alphabet-amazon-and-apple-have-the-faang-stocks-got-their-groove-back--14898468

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WAAX: Group of Australia’s better-known technology stocks: WiseTech Global Ltd., Appen Ltd., Altium Ltd., Afterpay Touch Group Ltd. and Xero Ltd.

FAANG: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet’s Google

BAT: Baidu Inc., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd

Corruption, Lobbying and American Politics

Corruption, Lobbying and American Politics

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/magazine/ocasio-cortez-is-finding-a-new-model-for-how-to-work-in-public.html

Whether one agrees or disagrees with AOC’s economic policy proposals, her ability to highlight the extent of political corruption in America is quite impressive.

Weekend Readings - International Affairs

America’s Global Image in the Trump Era

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/03/22/a-global-drop-in-approval-of-america-is-less-worrying-than-it-seems

China, Italy and the New Silk Road

https://www.newsweek.com/china-italy-silk-road-us-stop-1371180

Perceptions and Reality – The Case of Saudi Arabia

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n06/madawi-al-rasheed/the-saudi-lie

Saudi Arabia’s Economic Overhaul Is Backfiring

https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabias-economic-overhaul-is-backfiring-11553338819

The Far-Right in Australia

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/australasia/2019/03/how-australia-incubated-far-right-terror

Voter Ignorance and Political Polarization

Technology, Future of Jobs, UBI, and Societal Changes

Soon Be as Quaint as Owning a Horse: The shift away from private vehicles will happen faster than we think.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/opinion/end-of-cars-uber-lyft.html

The Revolutionary Way Of Using Artificial Intelligence In Hedge Funds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/02/15/the-revolutionary-way-of-using-artificial-intelligence-in-hedge-funds-the-case-of-aidyia/#cd2942f57ca3

Robots Are Coming for These Wall Street Jobs

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-wall-street-robots/

The Future of Not Working 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/magazine/universal-income-global-inequality.html
Universal Basic Income Enters Mainstream American Politics
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/andrew-yang-internet-democratic-primary.html
His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/technology/his-2020-campaign-message-the-robots-are-coming.html

Global Real Estate Market

Global Home Prices – Recent Developments

Prices of prime properties around the world are falling

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/09/prices-of-prime-properties-around-the-world-are-falling

Most Expensive Cities in the World
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/03/19/the-worlds-most-expensive-cities

Tribute to Princeton Economist Alan Krueger

The Economist on Alan Krueger

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/19/alan-krueger-natural-talent

Paul Krugman on Alan Krueger

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/opinion/alan-krueger-dies.html

Alan Krueger Led a Quiet Economics Revolution

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-18/princeton-professor-alan-krueger-led-quiet-economics-revolution

Federal Reserve and US Monetary Policy

Understanding the Fed’s Dovish Turn

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fed-interest-rate-pause-by-nouriel-roubini-2019-03

The Fed’s Failures Are Mounting

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-12/the-federal-reserve-s-failures-are-mounting

Good versus Bad Regulations

Self-Regulation can be a problem

Boeing Had Too Much Sway in Vetting Own Jets, FAA Was Told

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-18/boeing-had-too-much-sway-checking-own-planes-faa-workers-warned

Bad Regulations hurt the economy

Occupational licensing blunts competition and boosts inequality: How high earning professions lock their competitors out of the market

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/02/17/occupational-licensing-blunts-competition-and-boosts-inequality

Cumbersome regulations handicap small business sector in America

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/business/picking-apples-on-a-farm-with-5000-rules-watch-out-for-the-ladders.html

Interesting new research:

Is Occupational Licensing a Barrier to Interstate Migration? By Janna E. Johnson, Morris M. Kleiner

http://www.nber.org/papers/w24107

Abstract:

Occupational licensure, one of the most significant labor market regulations in the United States, may restrict the interstate movement of workers. We analyze the interstate migration of 22 licensed occupations. Using an empirical strategy that controls for unobservable characteristics that drive long-distance moves, we find that the between-state migration rate for individuals in occupations with state-specific licensing exam requirements is 36 percent lower relative to members of other occupations. Members of licensed occupations with national licensing exams show no evidence of limited interstate migration. The size of this effect varies across occupations and appears to be tied to the state specificity of licensing requirements. We also provide evidence that the adoption of reciprocity agreements, which lower re-licensure costs, increases the interstate migration rate of lawyers. Based on our results, we estimate that the rise in occupational licensing can explain part of the documented decline in interstate migration and job transitions in the United States.

Labor Economics in the 21st Century

Interesting paper published in the Harvard Law Review is worth reading:

ANTITRUST REMEDIES FOR LABOR MARKET POWER by Suresh Naidu, Eric A. Posner & Glen Weyl

https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/536-601_Online.pdf

ABSTRACT:

Recent research indicates that labor market power has contributed to wage inequality and economic stagnation. Although the antitrust laws prohibit firms from restricting competition in labor markets as in product markets, the government does little to address the labor market problem, and private litigation has been rare and mostly unsuccessful. One reason is that the analytic methods for evaluating labor market power in antitrust contexts are far less sophisticated than the legal rules used to judge product market power. To remedy this asymmetry, we propose methods for judging the effects of mergers on labor markets. We also extend our approach to other forms of anticompetitive practices undertaken by employers against workers. We highlight some arguments and evidence indicating that market power may be even more important in labor markets than in product markets.

Related:

http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2019/03/some-peculiarities-of-labor-markets-is.html 

Cost of Insulin Treatment in the US – A Case Study

Illuminating read: The Human Cost of Insulin

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47491964

Threats to the Liberal Democratic World Order [MUST READ]

Robert Kagan’s lengthy essay is worth reading. He notes:

Authoritarianism has reemerged as the greatest threat to the liberal democratic world — a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. And we have no idea how to confront it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2019/03/14/feature/the-strongmen-strike-back/

“Much more is at risk than our privacy. We have been living with the comforting myth that the great progress we have witnessed in human behavior since the mid-20th century, the reductions in violence, in the brutality of the state, in torture, in mass killing, cannot be reversed. There can be no more holocausts; no more genocides; no more Stalinist gulags. We insist on believing there is a new floor below which people and governments cannot sink. But this is just another illusion born in the era that is now passing.

The enormous progress of the past seven-plus decades was not some natural evolution of humanity; it was the product of liberalism’s unprecedented power and influence in the international system. Until the second half of the 20th century, humanity was moving in the other direction.”

Economics and the Real World

Can Economics Shake Its Shibboleths? By Jim O'Neill, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and former UK Treasury Minister, current Chairman of Chatham House.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economic-theory-false-assumptions-by-jim-o-neill-2019-03

My own perspective on some of the issues raised by Jim O'Neill:

HAS CONSUMPTION RECOVERED FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS?

http://www.ut.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Business/TBE_Spring_2018.pdf

WHY HAS U.S. INFLATION REMAINED PERSISTENTLY LOW? 

http://www.ut.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Business/TBE_Fall_2017.pdf

CAN THE US ECONOMY GROW AT A 3.5% TO 4% RATE ON A SUSTAINED BASIS?

http://www.ut.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Business/Centers_and_Insititutes/Tampa%20Bay%20Economy%20Winter%202017.pdf

WHY IS INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY WORSENING? 

http://www.ut.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Business/Summer%202016.pdf

Best Cities in the World on the Basis of Quality of Life - Rankings and Controversies

Quality of Living– Rankings

https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/Insights/quality-of-living-rankings

Justin Fox makes some great points:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-15/u-s-quality-of-life-doesn-t-deter-immigrants

“For the 10th year in a row, Vienna came out on top, with Zurich, Vancouver, Munich, Auckland, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Geneva and Basel rounding out the top 10. The top U.S. city on the list was San Francisco, all the way down in 34th place. …

But the notion that people all over the world are itching to move to the U.S. and not to any other rich countries is mistaken. All but three of the countries with cities that outranked San Francisco on the Mercer list have higher percentages of foreign-born residents than the U.S.”.

Economics of Global Aircraft Industry

How the Bizarre Economics of Airplanes Raises the Stakes of the Boeing Fallout

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2019/03/737-max-8-grounding-boeing-value/584947/

Related:

www.washingtonpost.com/world/across-the-globe-a-question-of-air-safety-becomes-a-question-of-american-leadership/2019/03/14/ff011090-45ec-11e9-94ab-d2dda3c0df52_story.html

Technology, Jobs and Wages - Reexamining Basic Assumptions

Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages by Paul Krugman

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/opinion/robots-jobs.html

Our Misplaced Fear of Job-Stealing Robots

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/misplaced-fear-job-stealing-robots

Has online shopping actually saved us any money?

www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/03/15/has-online-shopping-actually-saved-us-any-money/

Economics of Major League Baseball Salaries

Economics of Major League Baseball Salaries

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-14/the-era-of-mind-blowing-mlb-paydays-could-be-coming-to-an-end

Thought-Provoking Economic Commentary

Dani Rodrik - The Case for a Bold Economics

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bold-evidence-based-economics-by-dani-rodrik-2019-03

“Who has the upper hand in bargaining for wages and employment benefits? Who dominates markets and who must submit to market forces? Who can move across borders and who is stuck at home? Who can evade taxation and who cannot? Who gets to set the agenda of trade negotiations and who is excluded? Who can vote and who is effectively disenfranchised? We argue that addressing such asymmetries makes sense not only from a distributional standpoint, but also for improving overall economic performance.”

What’s Wrong with Contemporary Capitalism? By Angus Deaton (2015 Nobel Prize Winner)

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/crisis-of-capitalism-rajan-collier-by-angus-deaton-2019-03

The Dangerous Absurdity of America’s Trade Wars by Jeffrey Sachs

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-dangerous-absurd-trade-wars-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2019-03

Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy by Joseph Stiglitz (2001 Nobel Prize Winner)

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/united-states-economy-rising-market-power-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2019-03

Negative Externalities and Public Policy - The Case of Asbestos

Profile - Steven Pinker

Why Do People Love to Hate Steven Pinker? By Tom Bartlett

https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/hating-pinker

“Among influential social-science door-stoppers published in the last decade, Better Angels occupies a shelf alongside Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s a book you should at least pretend to have read.”

Textbook Economics

Reflections of a Textbook Author by N. Gregory Mankiw

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mankiw/files/reflections_of_a_textbook_author.pdf

Related:

https://www.econlib.org/mankiw-on-publishing-textbooks/

Critique of Mankiw’s approach:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-12/gregory-mankiw-steps-down-at-harvard-ending-an-era-in-economics

Future of Health

Wealth and College Admissions - UPDATED

What the College Scandal Says About America’s Elite

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-18/what-the-college-scandal-says-about-america-s-elite

College Admissions Scandal: Actresses, Business Leaders and Other Wealthy Parents Charged

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/college-admissions-cheating-scandal.html

Why Rich Parents Are So Set on Their Kids Going to Top Colleges

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/college-admissions-scandal-elite-anxieties/584740/

The College Admissions Scandal Presses Our ‘Unfairness’ Button

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-14/the-college-admissions-scandal-presses-our-unfairness-button

The Legacy Admissions Problem

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663629750/legacy-admissions-offer-an-advantage-and-not-just-at-schools-like-harvard

Tyler Cowen notes:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-12/college-admissions-scandal-is-about-more-than-just-bribery

“First, these bribes only mattered because college itself has become too easy, with a few exceptions. If the bribes allowed for the admission of unqualified students, then those students would find it difficult to finish their degrees. Yet most top schools tolerate rampant grade inflation and gently shepherd their students toward graduation. That’s because they realize that today’s students (and their parents) are future donors (and potential complainers on social media). It is easier for professors and administrators not to rock the boat. What does that say about standards at these august institutions of higher learning?”

The Grade Inflation Problem

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/01/grade-inflation-major-problem-at-uk-and.html

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2016/03/massive-grade-inflation-at-us_30.html

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2015/10/ernst-and-youngs-bold-experiment.html

https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-grade-inflation-epidemic-at.html

The Unloved Equity Bull Market

The Unloved Equity Bull Market

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/business/bull-market-anniversary.html

The $10 Trillion Stock Rally Gets a Reality Check from Slow Growth

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/the-10-trillion-stock-rally-gets-reality-check-from-slow-growth

Higher Education - Interesting Items

The Good and the Bad of Stanford's Massively Successful Startup Scene
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-10/dreamers-and-dropouts-stories-from-stanford-cradle-of-unicorns

Credit Risk, Student Loans and the Global Higher Education Market

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/helping-foreign-students-cover-the-high-price-of-an-mba

Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece notes:

“Prodigy’s thesis: Individuals of modest means who get into top graduate programs outside their home countries are good credit risks. But in many cases, particularly if they’re from a developing country, they can’t secure bank financing.”

Europe versus America – A Political Economy Perspective

The always insightful Roger Cohen notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/opinion/socialism-democrats-2020-europe.html

“When the Berlin Wall fell beneath communism’s weight three decades ago, capitalism unbridled strode forth over the rubble in search of global opportunity. Ideological struggle seemed over.

But growing inequality and marginalization — byproducts of financial globalization — have thrust socialism center stage.”

Northwestern University’s Monica Prasad notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/opinion/europe-taxes-sweden.html

“In the recent rush of proposals to tax the rich, Democrats have forgotten — or never really cared to learn — an important lesson: The countries that have been most successful at reducing poverty and inequality have not done it by taxing the wealthy and giving to the poor”.

Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/opinion/oppression-majority.html

“The defining political fact of our time is not polarization. It’s the inability of even large bipartisan majorities to get what they want on issues like these. …

It is true that policymaking requires expertise. But I don’t think members of the public are demonstrating ignorance when they claim that drug prices are too high, taxes could be fairer, privacy laws are too weak and monopolies are too coddled.”