Economists are Divided over Brexit
Even those economists that think Brexit is a disastrous idea differ on how severe the downside would be.
Read more...Category Archives: The dismal science
Curbing Monopolies Promotes Growth, Lowers Inequality
More aggressive anti-trust enforcement, not surprisingly, would spur growth and help the poor.
Read more...Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality Since 1700
American history suggests that inequality is not driven by some fundamental law of capitalist development, but rather by episodic shifts in five basic forces: demography, education policy, trade competition, financial regulation policy, and labour-saving technological change.
Read more...And Now, Price Deflation in India and China?
Price deflation, and classic debt deflation dynamics, are staring to appear in India and China.
Read more...Location, Location, Location: The Persistence of Fortune
Yves here. This intriguing paper curiously fails to consider how climate change can (will) affect the patterns they describe. And it also fails to give clues as to why some cities keep gaining population and income and others fall by the wayside. For instance, Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama were of comparable size in the 1970s, […]
Read more...Want to Kill Your Economy? Have MBA Programs Churn Out Takers Not Makers.
How MBAs have become negative value added to everyone but themselves.
Read more...“Finance is Just Another Industry”
A debunkng of the claim that finance is special and should be treated accordingly.
Read more...Hensarling’s “Market Regulation” Replacement to Dodd Frank Proves He Does Not Understand Banking
Yves here. Steve Waldman wrote a definitive post in 2009, Capital can’t be measured, on a core issue that Black discusses here. A key section: So, for large complex financials, capital cannot be measured precisely enough to distinguish conservatively solvent from insolvent banks, and capital positions are always optimistically padded. Given these facts, and I […]
Read more...Can Philosophy Stop Bankers From Stealing?
How can bankers be persuaded or coerced into behaving better?
Read more...Debate: Is “Degrowth” the Way to Reduce Greenhouse Gases?
A debate on sustainable growth versus degrowth.
Read more...Steve Keen: Zombie-to-Be Economies and the Walking Dead of Debt Include China, South Korea, Canada, Finland
Steve Keen’s macroeconomic model allows him to identify zombies-in-the-making. It’s not pretty.
Read more...The Abandonment of Countercyclical Fiscal Policy
Economists bemoan the lack of aggressive fiscal spending after the crisis. Funny how few of them were willing to advocate it when it mattered.
Read more...Investment Case Study: Some Oxford Dons Take Skeptical Look at Yale and Canadian Investment Fads, Um, Models
Believe it or not, a case study on major approaches to investing that is both informative and fun to read.
Read more...Michael Pettis: China – How Much Investment is Optimal?
If China’s very low level of social capital has long ago made its investment strategy obsolete, that suggests that China has overinvested beyond its capacity to utilize these investments economically. Thus there are hidden losses on bank balance sheets created by the failure to write down physical capital to its true value. In this case Chinese growth cannot help but drop significantly as these losses are finally recognized and as investment levels are sharply curtailed.
Read more...Hoisted From Comments: Neoliberalism Tearing Societies Apart
The true destructiveness of neoliberalism is becoming more and more apparent.
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