November 15, 2011
Links for 2011-11-15
Quick summaries of a few items of interest.
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Posted by James Hamilton at 03:41 PM permalink | Comments (13)
August 31, 2011
Recommendations for economic policy
An exchange I had last week with Econbrowser reader (and world-renowned scholar) Simon van Norden may be of interest to broader readers, so I lift it here from the comments:
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Posted by James Hamilton at 08:03 AM permalink | Comments (40)
August 18, 2011
Tax Expenditures
From Leonard E. Burman, Marvin Phaup, "Tax Expenditures, the Size and Efficiency of Government, and Implications for Budget Reform," NBER Working Paper 17268. (ungated early draft here):
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Posted by Menzie Chinn at 09:43 AM permalink | Comments (19)
August 10, 2011
Losing your AAA
On Friday, Standard & Poor's, one of the three main credit rating agencies, downgraded U.S. Treasury debt from AAA to AA+, citing doubts about the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions in being able to deal with the rising debt burden by the middle of the decade. It's been a wild ride for equity and commodity markets ever since.
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Posted by James Hamilton at 07:50 AM permalink | Comments (33)
August 05, 2011
More on the debt ceiling aftermath
Here are interviews I did earlier this week on the debt deal:
Posted by James Hamilton at 06:01 AM permalink | Comments (40)
August 02, 2011
Assessing the damage
We finally get our debt-ceiling deal, only to watch the S&P500 fall 3.7% from Thursday's close. What gives?
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Posted by James Hamilton at 04:34 PM permalink | Comments (42)
August 01, 2011
Income Share by Top Fractile (continued)
Or, why it was so important to keep top marginal income tax rates constant for millionaires.
Figure 1 depicts the income shares accruing to the top 0.5 percent and top 0.1 percent of households (including realized capital gains). It is clear that their shares have declined going from 2007 to 2008; for the top 0.1%, their share has declined from 12.3% to 10.4% of total income.
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Posted by Menzie Chinn at 04:42 PM permalink | Comments (82)
July 18, 2011
Ending the debt ceiling stand-off
Here's how I'm hoping this might work out.
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Posted by James Hamilton at 03:20 PM permalink | Comments (42)
July 09, 2011
Debt ceiling options
As Congress and the President continue to wrangle over raising the debt ceiling, more of us are wondering, what would happen if the debt ceiling isn't raised? To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be Plan A.
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Posted by James Hamilton at 11:25 AM permalink | Comments (68)
May 27, 2011
Economic Underpinnings of "The House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators"
Such as they are
In reading this short document (a word count was 2069, essentially a 8 page paper, shorter than the term papers I assign), I was pervaded by a sense of déjà vu. There are many interesting assertions (not a single footnote in the entire document). Rejoinders to some assertions are here. I’ll focus on some key guffaw-inducing assertions, relying largely upon previous Econbrowser posts.
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Posted by Menzie Chinn at 07:17 PM permalink | Comments (66)
April 26, 2011
Deficit compromise
The Washington Post reported last week on a discouraging poll. Americans supposedly want to reduce the deficit, but not if it means changing Medicare, cutting programs like defense or Medicaid, or raising taxes on anybody but the very richest Americans. Democrats and Republicans seem farther than ever from finding agreement. It's times like this that I'm glad there are some optimists around who still see some basis for making progress with America's daunting fiscal challenge.
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Posted by James Hamilton at 06:13 PM permalink | Comments (56)
March 22, 2011
National Journal: Ag Committee Supports Cuts to Food Assistance, Not Farm Subsidies
From National Journal (h/t Ezra Klein):
The House Agriculture Committee endorsed a letter this week to Budget Chairman Paul Ryan arguing that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans purchase food, would make a better target for cuts than automatic subsidies to farms.
Posted by Menzie Chinn at 02:50 PM permalink | Comments (22)