Instead of fearing the economic implications of technological progress, Dylan R. Matthews suggests in The Crimson that new technology should be embraced for its potential to create a society less devoted to work. In the exploring the economics of the issue, Matthews asserts that “technological progress requires humans to do less work, but it does not require fewer human workers. ... Read More
In a blog post for the Harvard Political Review, Christopher Oppermann writes that the positive outlook on Japan’s economic situation after the recent disaster is naïve. The idea that the disaster could lead to economic growth does not take into account the fact that the money spent on relief does not create real growth, but “simply serves to restore former ... Read More
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The myth of "productive destruction" in the wake of the disaster in Japan
I was really excited to see how the U.S. was going to receive Chinese president Hu Jintao’s visit this week. A lot has happened throughout the world since the Chinese president’s last visit in 2006 including China officially becoming the world’s second largest economy, the U. S. financial meltdown, as well as human rights concerns in Xinjiang, Tibet, and the ... Read More
In 2003, Columbia University, a private university in New York City, announced plans to build a new 17-acre campus in Manhattanville, West Harlem. This, it explained, was necessary to maintain its role as a leading educational and research hub. Moreover, the university emphasized the economic benefits that expansion would bring to the community. But, this proposed development encountered voluble resistance ... Read More
Paul doesn’t know what I’m talking about: I’m a little bit unclear what you mean by public-wealth. Are you defining private-wealth as rich people and public-wealth as everybody else? Or are you defining private-wealth as the wealth of citizens and corporations and public-wealth as that of the government? So let me clarify. I’ll start with definitions. Private wealth, to my ... Read More
America is the richest country in the world. Karl Smith suggests three reasons why: I am going to go pretty conventional on this one and say a combination of three big factors 1. The Common Law 2. Massive Immigration 3. The Great Scientific Exodus during WWII You’ll notice that four of the top five countries in the Human Development Indexhave the Common ... Read More
This is a follow-up post on Alastair Su’s blog post “Taking a Cue From Thailand’s Mr Condom”, looking specifically at China’s one-child policy and its economic impacts. Just over a year ago, the first few Chinese babies born in 1979 turned 30 – a significant milestone by any measure, but one made all the more momentous by them being the ... Read More
With the recent celebration of the 20th anniversary of German reunification, it is something of a curiosity that of the three countries that were partitioned at the onset of the Cold War – Germany, Korea and Vietnam – it is the two Koreas that still resist the compelling pull of reunification. With the recent naming of North Korean dictator Kim ... Read More
While Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega’s statement that the world is the midst of an “international currency war” might be somewhat premature, there is no denying the fact countries today — Japan, Taiwan and South Korea among them — are intervening in currency markets to give their own export competitiveness a shot in the arm, and that these actions, like ... Read More
Thomas Friedman, yesterday, in this Times column, found his rhetorical flourish yet lost his practical sensibility. In a fairly particularly common theme for him, Friedman praises the autocratic, oppressive Chinese government as efficient and resourceful, while decrying “our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class”. Friedman goes on further to suggest that politics today in the US is nothing more ... Read More
From the Economist via Bloomberg, the most worrisome news I read today. The gist of the story: China’s banking regulator told lenders last month to conduct a new round of stress tests to gauge the impact of residential property prices falling as much as 60 percent in the hardest-hit markets, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Banks were ... Read More
Sometimes you read a Tyler Cowen post and you think to yourself, simply: Did he really just say that? Here’s Cowen on payday loans and unprotected sex: The unprotected sex is riskier and less prudent than borrowing money at an annualized rate of two hundred percent. Why prohibit one and not the other? Many of the borrowers are being fooled, ... Read More
Last week, Peyton argued that, “If the goal of policy is full employment, there are likely much better ways to accomplish this than unemployment insurance, and the drawbacks of this program [to extend UI benefits] are not to be rejected out of hand.” As he accurately points out, “The debate among economists is not about whether unemployment benefits generate additional ... Read More
