Saturday, December 31, 2011

Buses are another matter

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From Matt Turner : First, two commonly suggested responses to traffic congestion—expansions of the road and public transit network—...

No wonder he can't understand benefit cost analysis.

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In his advocacy for California High Speed Rail, Will Doig can't even get the population of California right.    He says during the cent...
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Choice words from William Black (h/t Rik Osmer)

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He writes : If one had to pick one person in the private sector most responsible for causing the global financial crisis it would be Walli...

Stegman as Geithner's Advisor on Housing

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The news that Michael Stegman will be taking a leave from MacArthur to advise Tim Geithner on housing is very good.  It is important for th...
2 comments:
Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Jeremy Stein for Fed Governor (reprise)

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Personally, I am a big fan of Stein's work. The shortest way to explain why is to list the titles of his five most cited papers: Herd ...
2 comments:
Sunday, December 25, 2011

Joe Nocera nails it

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He writes : ... Peter Wallison , a resident scholar at the  American Enterprise Institute , and a former member of the Financial Crisis In...
4 comments:
Friday, December 23, 2011

Simon Johnson underlines a problem..that could point to a solution.

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He writes : Santa Claus came early this year for four former executives of Washington Mutual, which failed in 2008. The executives  reach...

Why Fannie and Freddie will likely last

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I was talking with SF Chronicle columnist Kathleen Pender yesterday, and she shared a trenchant observation:  now that Congress has figured...
1 comment:
Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Why to worry about Chinese house prices.

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Getting good data from China is problematic, but it is pretty clear house prices there are falling (see here, here and here ).  At first ...
Saturday, December 17, 2011

It is possible to hold the following two views at the same time

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(1) The executives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be held to account for their contributions to the crisis; and (2) Compared with b...
1 comment:
Thursday, December 15, 2011

Why don't economists have more influence in the White House?

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I was talking to someone who was an official in the adminstration about this.  The person told me the problem is, in part, that economists h...
9 comments:
Thursday, December 08, 2011

I really don't understand what the President is thinking today.

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I do not understand his definition of "common sense." High rates of births to very young mothers has been a scourge of central c...
1 comment:
Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Who would pay a 73 percent income tax? Not necessarily the rich.

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A paper which is receiving considerable attention (see here , here and here ) is Diamond and Saez's Journal of Economic Perspectives ...
11 comments:
Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Is it gloom, or is it underwriting?

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More depressing house price numbers from Core logic this morning, with prices falling 1.3 percent month-over month.  The National Associati...
3 comments:
Sunday, December 04, 2011

Mark Thoma on the Ec 10 Walk-out

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I really liked this : I was going to stay out of this, partly because I don't find this particular expression of the protest very com...
3 comments:
Friday, December 02, 2011

New rule: if you are going to call yourself an economist, you need to know the meaning of a confidence interval

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I was listening to NPR on the drive in to work this morning, and a heard a man who was labeled "an economist," say that the job gr...
3 comments:
Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I now work for the Sol Price School of Public Policy as well as the Marshall School of Business at USC

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The Price Family gave a $50 million gift for the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development to be remained the USC Sol Price School of P...
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Why I think Raphael Bostic is more likely right about FHA than Joe Gyourko/AEI/WSJ

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A healthy debate has taken place between HUD Assistant Secretary Raphael Bostic and Wharton Professor Joe Gyourko on the financial future ...
1 comment:
Saturday, November 26, 2011

Does slowing people down slow down the economy?

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As my family and I were traveling back to LA from my parents' place in Arizona this weekend, we had to stop at three checkpoints.  Each ...
4 comments:
Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Remembering the date

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In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do...