Saturday, October 31, 2009

Never thought I would live to see the day...

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..that a politician would present a powerpoint that included a slide on the "lemons problem." The Vice-President of Taiwan, Vince...
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Taipei has among the best public transit systems in the world

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The MRT (heavy rail) system is fast, comprehensive and clean. It is busy in the middle of the day, suggesting feasibility. The buses are ve...
26 comments:
Sunday, October 25, 2009

Ten Facts about California

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For pictures, go here . Thanks to Matt Moore for research assistance. (1) Family of four median income in California ranks 15th among the s...
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Friday, October 23, 2009

Is the Tax Credit + FHA a toxic combination?

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It would be churlish not to think today's strong existing home numbers were good. But there is an aspect of it that worries me. The tax...
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I guest post at Paul Romer's charter city blog

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The post begins : Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea experienced great economic success: all have per capita GDP that is at least seven times hi...
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Why government spending makes people angry

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I was listening in to some proposals for building Section 42 Low Income Housing Tax Credit housing the other day. I heard three proposals: ...
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Can Corporate CEOs justify private jet travel?

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The Washington Post had a story today about CEO perks at rescued banks. Among the most common, of course, is the use of a private jet for ...
1 comment:
Sunday, October 18, 2009

USC planning student Alexene Farol writes about why public transit is hard for LA

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Lex Rail writes (h/t Lisa Schweitzer): The biggest complaint I repeatedly hear about L.A. is that it has a poor public transportation system...
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Friday, October 16, 2009

What is the optimal Rock Star status for a professor?

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Greg Mankiw's blog led me to a piece in the Harvard Crimson on three of Harvard's most popular professors: Mankiw himself, Robert ...
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

My friend Suzanne Gillespie sends me a story on the Las Vegas Housing Market.

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CNBC reports that houses in Las Vegas are falling apart, and that at least one buyer went to a homebuilder for a new house because she coul...
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Monday, October 12, 2009

Crooked Timber on Elinor Ostrom

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Henry writes: Lin’s work focuses on the empirical analysis of collective goods problems – how it is that people can come up with their own s...
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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Jan Brueckner and Bob Helsley find that subsidized sprawl produces urban blight

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Jan presented the paper at the first annual UCLA-UCI-USC real estate research day. The finding was straightforward but still interesting: i...
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Bob Shiller wonders what the turnaround in house prices means

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He concludes : WHAT should we conclude? Given the abnormality of the economic environment, the sudden turn in the housing market probably re...
2 comments:
Saturday, October 10, 2009

Paul Romer's radical idea: Charter cities

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I like the idea of Canada turning Guantanamo Bay into Hong Kong.
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Wednesday, October 07, 2009

William Brock, Cars Hommes and Florian Wagener show how hedging instruments can destabilize markets.

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More hedging instruments may destabilize markets : This paper formalizes the idea that more hedging instruments or derivative securities may...
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Robert Solow on what is needed for growth

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From an interview with the MIT Times . Q. Your research made clear how much technology can contribute to economic growth. To what extent mig...
3 comments:
Monday, October 05, 2009

One of Mark Thoma's Best Posts

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On how to think about research on modifications to the Efficient Markets Hypothesis: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/1...
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A first step toward making California governable?

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Last week I discussed a talk by Isaac Martin (UCSD) on the political durability of Proposition 13. Isaac pointed out that Proposition 13 co...
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Sunday, October 04, 2009

Paul Harris of the Guardian writes that California may be a failed state

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I found one paragraph especially disturbing : Yet California is currently cutting healthcare, slashing the "Healthy Families" prog...
7 comments:
Saturday, October 03, 2009

Nancy Franklin points out serious sex-discrimination in the joke market

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In her New Yorker review of the Jay Leno show , she writes: In other diversity news, Leno’s and the rest of the nighttime comedy shows are b...
6 comments: