A new report ranks where U.S. college graduates can find the best jobs, and the best quality of life.
Friday, May 31, 2019
Tackling the Grade Inflation Problem
John Nye makes some excellent points:
Make School Hard Again: Grade inflation needs to stop.
“This nonsense should cease. Schools are not here to certify the life achievements of the 1 percent, nor does it disparage the value of either sports or more vocationally oriented jobs that universities are not meant to serve those who excel at those activities. They are places for learning and scholarship.
Those who are less academically qualified should not, because of some essay they wrote for a specialized pool of admissions officers, buoyed by a donation from their parents, be granted admission to a top school over a middle- or lower-class child so naive as to think that strong test scores and grades would be enough. Outside the United States, such a system would be rightly filed under corruption and malfeasance—with or without the addition of phony claims to athletic prowess.”
Related:
Indian-Americans Dominate Spelling Bee (Again)
The National Spelling Bee has not one -- but 8 champions
How Indian Americans came to dominate the National Spelling Bee
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/opinions/national-spelling-bee-parenting-genx-genz-shankar/index.html
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Social Media Makes You Stupid
Twitter is eroding your intelligence. Now
there’s data to prove it.
“The finding by a
team of Italian researchers is not necessarily that the crush of hashtags,
likes and retweets destroys brain cells; that’s a question for neuroscientists,
they said.
Rather, the
economists, in a working paper published this month by the economics and
finance department at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan,
found that Twitter not only fails to enhance intellectual attainment but
substantially undermines it.”
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Capital Stock Depreciation and Investment – A Real World Example
From the WSJ:
Aging Interstate Highways Force States to Rebuild in Midst of Traffic
“Crews reconstructing I-4 through Orlando must work in a tight corridor flanked by buildings, juggle tasks with two dozen utilities, contend with sinkholes and repeatedly move lanes around, confusing oncoming drivers. Price to redo 21 miles: $2.3 billion”
Monday, May 27, 2019
China – Lessons from Japan
Japan Then, China Now [MUST READ]
Related:
Yale’s steadfast commitment to our international students and scholars
As the trade war heats up, China looks to
Japan’s past for lessons
Related:
Yale’s steadfast commitment to our international students and scholars
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Profiles of Economists Doing Interesting Research
Profile of French Economist Gabriel Zucman:
The Wealth Detective Who Finds the Hidden Money of the Super Rich
Economists doing interesting work:
Philip Jefferson
Gita Gopinath
Lisa Cook
Lawrence Katz
Anne Case
Matthew Gentzkow
Hilary Hoynes
Branko Milanovic
Claudia Goldin
Raj Chetty
Robert J. Gordon
Kristin Forbes
David Card
Friday, May 24, 2019
An Epic Democratic Exercise Worth Celebrating
India’s Successful Democracy –
India’s clear-cut election mandate gave a boost
to supporters of democracy. Record voter turnout (similar turnout figures for both men and women) and popular vote (no electoral
college nonsense) decided the unequivocal winner (Narendra Modi) and the
opposition leader (Rahul Gandhi) promptly accepted defeat. It is quite amazing that
a relatively poor country is able to do such a great job of reflecting the people’s will in this troubled and highly polarized era.
Great Charts: India general election 2019: What happened?
Erosion of US Institutional Quality
Trump keeps trying to pick winners and
losers, from farm aid to a border wall contract
Extract from The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
Related:
USDA farms out economists whose work
challenges Trump policies
Extract from The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
Related:
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Strong Labor Markets in Advanced Economies
A lengthy and somewhat convoluted piece on the jobs boom from The Economist:
Across the rich world, an extraordinary jobs boom is under way
US-China Trade Conflict – Adding Up the Costs
The Impact of US-China Trade Tensions
The Real Cost of Trump’s Tariffs
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/america-china-trump-tariffs-economic-cost-by-jeffrey-frankel-2019-05
3 Subtle Ways China Is Beating Trump At His Own Trade War
3 Subtle Ways China Is Beating Trump At His Own Trade War
The first round of China tariffs already stifled U.S. exports
Data Driven Economics – Rethinking Introductory Economics
The radical plan to change how Harvard
teaches economics
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/14/18520783/harvard-economics-chetty
Economic Opportunity in America: Insights from Big Data Analysis
https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/03/economic-opportunity-in-america.html
--
My personal take on what to teach principles of economics students:
I think that the bigger point of the on-going debate at both UK and US universities is not to overhype the extent to which simple theories (shorn of nuances) can be used to provide concrete answers or solutions to difficult real-world problems. Or worse, offer up ideologically-driven answers to complicated real-world questions. There are a lot of issues that are quite tricky (the ‘ceteris paribus’ assumption frequently does not hold in the real world), and most undergraduate students are fully aware of this and don’t mind being challenged to think harder. If we want to make sure that economics is some sort of a scientifically-oriented field that is not ideology-based (and not distorted by personal political opinions of the faculty), we need to emphasize empirical findings even in Principles of Economics courses.
Dylan Mathews notes:
“Reading through
Mankiw’s introductory textbook, one gets a sense that economics is the study of
supply and demand. Reading through the syllabus for Chetty’s Economics 1152,
one gets a very different sense of the field. The economics he describes is,
essentially, a kind of applied statistics, an attempt to use quantitative data
to answer social questions.”Economic Opportunity in America: Insights from Big Data Analysis
https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2019/03/economic-opportunity-in-america.html
--
My personal take on what to teach principles of economics students:
I think that the bigger point of the on-going debate at both UK and US universities is not to overhype the extent to which simple theories (shorn of nuances) can be used to provide concrete answers or solutions to difficult real-world problems. Or worse, offer up ideologically-driven answers to complicated real-world questions. There are a lot of issues that are quite tricky (the ‘ceteris paribus’ assumption frequently does not hold in the real world), and most undergraduate students are fully aware of this and don’t mind being challenged to think harder. If we want to make sure that economics is some sort of a scientifically-oriented field that is not ideology-based (and not distorted by personal political opinions of the faculty), we need to emphasize empirical findings even in Principles of Economics courses.
See for example these posts that highlight a wide range of opinions/results related to four complicated/controversial issues:
NIMBYism and Housing Shortage
Impact of Minimum Wage Hikes:
Gender Pay Gap Debate:
Climate Change and the Carbon Tax Debate:
--
For the record, I lean towards centrist libertarianism:
Centrist Libertarianism
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
NIMBYism and Housing Shortage
NIMBYism and California’s Housing Shortage
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/opinion/california-housing-nimby.html
A damning indictment from Farhad Manjoo:
“Reading opposition
to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I’m struck by an unsettling
thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy
progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving “local
character,” maintaining “local control,” keeping housing scarce and
inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.”
The Great American Single-Family Home
Problem
To End U.K. Housing Shortage, Build More
Houses. Duh
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-30/to-end-u-k-housing-shortage-build-more-houses-duh
“The biggest problem for the government is that a housing policy that is truly effective would make prices fall. This is bound to hit home-owners, including many older people who typically vote for the Conservative party.”
“The biggest problem for the government is that a housing policy that is truly effective would make prices fall. This is bound to hit home-owners, including many older people who typically vote for the Conservative party.”
College Education - Useful Readings
There’s More to College Than Getting into
College
David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, notes:
“In the
Gallup-Purdue study, the type of college that students attended affected their
sense of well-being after graduation more than what they experienced at
whichever institution they chose. The 3 percent of students whose lives changed
for the better—who, according to Gallup, had the types of experiences that
“strongly relate to great jobs and great lives afterward”—had three features in
common: a great teacher and mentor, intensive engagement in activities outside
class, and in-depth study and application of ideas.
These three shared
features are all about intensity—not just participation in college life, but
active engagement. They require students to move beyond merely doing something
and toward becoming devoted to something. They require a depth of commitment
that will serve students well throughout their lives. And yet nearly nothing in
the admissions process tells students that these are the keys to their success.”
Maryland’s small colleges saw the future, and it was bleak. Now, they’re selling liberal arts with a twist.
American Students Have Changed Their Majors
The most consequential, and least informed, decision that college students make
Engineering Degrees – Statistics on Who Undertakes STEM Education
Revitalizing Capitalism
Richard Reeves notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/22/capitalism-broken-better-future-can-it-do-that
“It is now more
than half a century since the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth and
Fred Hirsch published the Social Limits to Growth. The first argued that the
depletion of natural resources would put the brakes on economic progress; the
latter that competition among the affluent for positional goods (valuable
precisely because of their scarcity) would reduce overall welfare. While both
predictions contained important truths, neither have so far proved correct.
Market-fueled growth has slowed, certainly by comparison to the booming decades
in the middle of the last century, and has become more skewed towards the rich,
but it has not stalled.
The question now is
not, I think, whether and how capitalism will end, but how it can renew its
promise of a better future – for us all.”
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer observes:
“It is the job of government to prevent a tragedy of
the commons. That includes the commons of shared values and norms on which
democracy depends. The dominant digital platform companies, including Facebook
and Google, make their profits using business models that erode this commons.
They have created a haven for dangerous misinformation and hate speech that has
undermined trust in democratic institutions. And it is troubling when so much
information is controlled by so few companies.
What is the best way to protect and restore this
public commons? Most of the proposals to change platform companies rely on
either antitrust law or regulatory action. I propose a different solution.
Instead of banning the current business model — in which platform companies harvest
user information to sell targeted digital ads — new legislation could establish
a tax that would encourage platform companies to shift toward a healthier,
more traditional model.”
How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy
Columbia University
Law Professor Tim Wu makes an interesting point:
“The historical link between privacy and the forces of
wealth creation helps explain why privacy is under siege today. It reminds us,
first, that mass privacy is not a basic feature of human existence but a
byproduct of a specific economic arrangement — and therefore a contingent and
impermanent state of affairs. And it reminds us, second, that in a capitalist
country, our baseline of privacy depends on where the money is. And today that
has changed.”
Related:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/opinion/internet-data-privacy.html
Related:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/opinion/internet-data-privacy.html
Chicago economist Raghuram Rajan notes:
“More generally, the more that government-defined
intellectual-property rights, regulations, and tariffs – rather than
productivity – bolster a corporation’s profits, the more dependent it becomes
on government benevolence. The only guarantee of corporate efficiency and
independence tomorrow is competition today.”
Related:
A Flawed Regulatory Structure
America's flawed regulatory structure -
The Case of the Chemical Industry:
The toxic threat in everyday products, from toys to plastic
The Case of the Chemical Industry:
The toxic threat in everyday products, from toys to plastic
Internal emails reveal how the chemical
lobby fights regulation
Purdue Pharma accused of 'corrupting' WHO to
boost global opioid sales
Macroeconomic Debates - We Live in Interesting Times
Economics Reinvents Itself Every Few Decades. It's Happening Now
Has Austerity Been Vindicated?
A World of Interconnected Economic Problems
The Problem of Over-Optimistic Economic Forecasts
Recessions Are Getting Tougher to Predict
Do Longer Expansions Lead to More Severe Recessions?
Noah Smith highlights the underlying challenges faced by Macroeconomists:
“Economies are so complex that there is no such thing as a perfect macroeconomic theory. They all make simplifications, and they all have limits beyond which the theories stop applying.”
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Challenges Facing Democracies
Democracy and Its Discontents by Adam
Tooze
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/06/06/democracy-and-its-discontents/
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/06/06/democracy-and-its-discontents/
International Affairs - Interesting Readings
Differing Approaches to Immigration
Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson note:
“… the Swedish reporter wanted to know how Canada was able to take in so many refugees, hundreds of thousands of them, year after year, and integrate them successfully.
Except, that’s not what Canada does at all, the Canadian explained. Typically, about 10 percent of the people who are granted permanent resident status (which puts them on the path to citizenship) each year are refugees. The rest are either immigrants brought in because they will contribute to the Canadian economy or family members of economic-class immigrants….
Canada brings in immigrants for reasons that are entirely selfish, which is why immigration works better in Canada than in Sweden”.
kleptocracy, money laundering and global corruption:
kleptocracy, money laundering and global corruption:
Why no one should be surprised by the latest Trump corruption mess
Brian Klaas notes:
“Corruption may originate with cookie-cutter villains and cartoonish oligarchs in Moscow, but they’re getting away with it with the help of seemingly legitimate banks and seemingly legitimate businesspeople in the Londons and Miamis of the world”
Trump’s approach to foreign policy provokes an anti-American response
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-america-first-philosophy-has-created-a-less-stable-world/2019/05/16/edbd5970-7818-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html
Scott Sumner on America's foreign
policy misadventures:
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/how-can-the-world-best-gang-up-on-america/
Who is the Lesser Evil – Iran or Saudi Arabia?
PETER BEINART, a professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York, notes:
“But the problem with suggesting that Iranian is uniquely supportive of terrorism is that, in recent decades, Sunni jihadist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda have killed far more American civilians. And those groups have received the bulk of their state support not from Iran but from Sunni-led regimes—particularly Saudi Arabia and other monarchies in the Gulf. In 2016, Americans learned that a long-classified section of the 9/11 Commission Report alleged that, “While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government.”
Worker Insecurity and the Economic Safety Net
The Economy Is Strong. So Why Do So Many Americans Still Feel at Risk?
Why Workers Without College Degrees Are Fleeing Big Cities
What if Cities Are No Longer the Land of Opportunity for Low-Skilled Workers?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/upshot/big-cities-low-skilled-workers-wages.html
Book Recommendation:
Book Recommendation:
Monday, May 20, 2019
Trade Basics
Imports Are Good, Mr. President
Trade Deficit Disorder
The Trade-Balance Creed: Debunking the Belief
that Imports and Trade Deficits Are a “Drag on Growth”
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Political Polarization - A Global Phenomenon
Australian Election Results
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-19/australia-s-shock-election-result-has-global-echoes
Political Polarization in India
Critique of Western Media Coverage:
Migration Patterns: Americans Headed South
The little-noticed surge across the U.S.-Mexico border: It’s Americans heading south
Friday, May 17, 2019
Venezuela’s Epic Economic Collapse
Venezuela’s Collapse Is the Worst Outside of
War in Decades, Economists Say
How a plot filled with intrigue and betrayal
failed to oust Venezuela’s president
Why Venezuela’s oil money could keep
undermining its economy and democracy
--
Paul Krugman notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/trump-socialism-state-of-the-union.html
“What Americans who support “socialism” actually want is what the rest of the world calls social democracy: A market economy, but with extreme hardship limited by a strong social safety net and extreme inequality limited by progressive taxation. They want us to look like Denmark or Norway, not Venezuela.”
“What Americans who support “socialism” actually want is what the rest of the world calls social democracy: A market economy, but with extreme hardship limited by a strong social safety net and extreme inequality limited by progressive taxation. They want us to look like Denmark or Norway, not Venezuela.”
CEO Pay, Wages and the US Labor Market
No matter how their companies do, the top
bosses do better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/opinion/ceo-pay-raises.html
Big Companies Pay CEOs for Good
Performance—and Bad
American life is improving for the lowest
paid [the second half of the article is worth reading carefully]
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Blatant Corruption
Presidential Pardons
How Hedge Funds (Secretly) Get Their Way in Washington
Billionaire Donor Sheldon Adelson and US Middle East Policies
THE ECONOMIST - Bob Murray, the coal baron with the president’s ear
Lobbying and Special Interests
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/opinion/lobbyists-washington-trump.html--
The Rise of Economic Jingoism
Jingoism: extreme chauvinism or nationalism
The nativist nonsense reaches new highs:
After two faulty Boeing jets crash, the Trump administration blames foreign pilots
FACTS:
The Dangerous Flaws in Boeing's Automated System
Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet
Audio reveals pilots confronting Boeing about new features suspected in deadly crashes
--
In Trump’s Economy, the Invisible Hand Belongs to the Government
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
History of American Capitalism
American Capitalism – Historical Perspective
Robert Samuelson on the debate surrounding American
capitalism:
Five myths about capitalism
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