Category Archives: economics

The Payday Loan Debate

There’s a short
but sweet debate
over at Business Week today between two prominent econobloggers,
Nouriel Roubini and Tyler Cowen. The question
is whether the US government should place greater restrictions on car sellers,
pay-day lenders, and tax preparers who offer the working poor cash or credit
with high fees and interest rates. Roubini says yes, it should. Cowen says no,
it shouldn’t. Roubini is right.
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This is a Bull Market, Not a Bubble

What we’re in right now is a bull market, not a bubble. And although both bull markets and bubbles do come to an end, the chances of a disastrous crash are much lower in the former case than in the latter.
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Do Stock Prices Reflect Economic Reality?

It’s always possible to find an argument why stocks should be rising, and it’s always possible to find an argument why stocks should be falling. I’ll go with whichever argument accords with what the stock market is actually doing at the time.
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Larry Summers vs Martin Wolf on Russia

Summers seems to be incapable of admitting that US policy towards Russia in the aftermath of the Cold War was actually disastrous.
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In Praise of Infrastructure Privatization

The government gets more money than the asset is worth, and gets to spend it on the public; meanwhile, the private-sector is burdened with the liabilities for the next 100 years.
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Does Latin America Need More Investment?

In this age of abundant global liquidity, it’s interesting to consider that there’s an entire continent which is seemingly still desperate for more investment.
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Uruguay: A Quiet Latin Success Story

Carlos Steneri and the resurgence of Uruguay.
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Does Economics Reduce Poverty?

The number of people living on less than a dollar a day is decreasing. Can economists claim any credit?
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In Which I Envy Brad DeLong’s Lunch

Brad DeLong has more interesting lunches than you do.
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The End of Balanced Budgets

No Republican president has shown any inclination whatsoever towards
balanced budgets: the allure of further tax cuts is always too great. And now
the consensus among Democrats, too, is very much that balancing the budget is
overrated.
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Cap-and-Trade: Can it Work for Water Rights?

If a cap-and-trade system works for sulfur and for carbon, it should be able
to work for water, too.
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The Effects of Illegal Workers on Productivity

Official employment figures are still very high in the construction industry.
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The Downside of M&A: Monopolies

Researchers recently asked 100 of the country’s top antitrust lawyers whether mergers between firms in the same industry are more likely to be approved than they were a decade ago. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “significantly more favorable,” the average score was 4.9.
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How Selfish is Robert Rubin?

Yes, Robert Rubin did very well out of his own economic policies. That’s a good thing.
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The $5 Trillion at the Base of the Pyramid

For an interesting long-tail play, it might be worth thinking not about houses which sell for $200 million, but rather about houses which sell for $2,000.
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When Free Isn’t Good

Nothing makes me happier than services which are cheaper and better than the alternative; free-and-better, is, in theory, the best combination of all. But it still makes sense sometimes to want to pay a bit of money.
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