Sunday, July 29, 2012

Bowles-Simpson: What am I missing?

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The Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan is causing consternation among people with whom I usually agree .  But it has a couple of importa...
11 comments:
Friday, July 27, 2012

Can a name depress rents?

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I needed to go to the Brazilian Consulate to apply for a visa yesterday--it is located at 8484 Wilshire Blvd.  The building at that address...
4 comments:

Dependence

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So far as I can tell, Casey Mulligan and I have but two things in common: an economics degree, and eyeglasses (he is wearing a pair in the ...
1 comment:

Frank Popper on Academia

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He comments on my friend Lisa Schweitzer's blog : As an alternative to this kabuki, let me describe specific kinds of experiences I...
6 comments:
Thursday, July 26, 2012

Why do lenders and borrowers do things like this?

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I was talking with a real estate broker today about the process of short sales, and why they are so difficult to do, and she told me a rath...
4 comments:
Wednesday, July 25, 2012

A Painting by Morgan Green

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6 comments:
Monday, July 23, 2012

Could Ted afford his apartment? Probably not.

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In the movie Ted (one that I am embarrassed to say I rather liked), Ted has a minimum wage job as a checker.  In Massachusetts, that means ...
4 comments:
Friday, July 20, 2012

Jonathan Haskel, Robert Z. Lawrence, Edward E. Leamer, and Matthew J. Slaughter on Globalization and Wages

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Read the whole thing.  Here is the conclusion : We hope that readers will take from our paper three main conclusions about  the recent tre...
6 comments:
Wednesday, July 18, 2012

How Los Angeles works better than you think

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One of the keys to maintaining one's sanity when living in LA is to know how and when to avoid freeways.  When the 110 runs clear, it t...
5 comments:
Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Those who own their houses with equity also get a tax break.

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Matthew Yglesias, who wrote a terrific piece on the benefits of off-shoring yesterday, also wrote a piece on why Mark Zuckerberg has a mort...
2 comments:
Friday, July 13, 2012

What would game theory say about LIBOR?

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On days like to day, I wish I were a game theorist.  The I could figure out what a Nash game would predict about LIBOR reporting, and how t...
5 comments:
Thursday, July 12, 2012

Let's push 15 year refinances.

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If someone refinances a 30 year 6 percent mortgage (with 27 years of payments left on it) into a 15 year 2.86 percent mortgage , the payme...
4 comments:
Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Three reasons not to be crazy about hypothesis tests

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(1)  With large samples, unimportant treatments can be "statistically significant."  If we precisely measure that a treatment has...
3 comments:

Mark Thoma reminds me of something Art Goldberger taught me: R-squared is over-rated

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Mark posts a letter from Stephen Ziliak : The chief finding of the Soyer-Hogarth experiment is that the expert econometricians themsel...
4 comments:
Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The practical problem with San Bernardino County using eminent domain to acquire mortgages.

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Joe Nocera writes about Housings Last Chance? As for fair value, since the home has dropped dramatically in value, the mortgage is wort...
3 comments:

Tiebout sure knew what he was writing about

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I went to my 35th high school reunion last weekend, in La Crosse, Wisconsin.  It was very pleasant--people were very nice.  But a large num...
2 comments:
Friday, July 06, 2012

I am glad I do not live in a battleground state

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Because national election results in California are pretty much a foregone conclusion, we don't get too much in the way of campaign adve...
1 comment:
Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Marlon Boarnet on his Wal-mart study

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He tells me: WalMart wages were very difficult to get, but we found nothing to indicate that WalMart adjusted wages by cost of living. So ...
3 comments:
Monday, July 02, 2012

Yes, wages at Wal-mart are awful.

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My colleague Marlon Boarnet and co-authors show that they are : in the Bay Area, Wal-mart grocery workers' total compensation is a lit...
3 comments:
Sunday, July 01, 2012

Some evidence of the decline of civilization

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Many years ago, I watched the Today Show on a regular basis.  I hadn't watched it at all for years, however, until a day a few months a...
3 comments: