April Speaking Events: Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Here is a list of events that Tyler and/or I will be speaking at in the near future.

  • Tyler and I will both be at the APEE conference in Las Vegas, April 11-13.
  • Tyler will be speaking on “The Economics of the Jobless Recovery” at Emory University on Thursday April 22, 4-5:15 pm.  More information here.
  • Tyler and I will both be speaking at the Fifteenth Annual University of Kentucky Teaching Workshop on Saturday April 24.  I will be talking about “Seeing the Invisible Hand” and Tyler will talk about the “Impact of the Financial Crisis on the Teaching of Macroeconomics.”  More information and registration here.

A Korean most influential books list

by  Tyler Cowen in

The list is here, I especially liked the first selection:

1.  Fisher-Price Toy Catalog (Age 6)

Yes, I'm serious. Laugh all you want for being childish, but heck, I was a child. At around age 6 while living in Korea, I somehow came to have a spiffy catalog from America that listed all Fisher-Price toys that were available for mail-order. The catalog had all these incredible toys that neither I nor any of my friends have ever seen. I read that catalog so many times, imagining playing with those toys, until the catalog eventually disintegrated in my hands one day.

The catalog was the book that confirmed to me — who was six, mind you — that America must be the best and the greatest country in the world. Later when I came to America, my faith was validated.

Explaining the United States to German graduate students

by  Tyler Cowen in

I'll be teaching a class at the Freie Universität this summer on this topic, in the North American Studies department.  I am wondering what I should have them read.  So far I am considering:

1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.

2. Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, by Paul Fussell.

3. The American Religion, by Harold Bloom.

4. John Gunther, Inside U.S.A.; a longstanding favorite of mine.

5. State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey.

6. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword, by Seymour Martin Lipset.

7. Peter Baldwin, The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How American and Europe are Alike.  I disagree with the premise of this book but nonetheless it may shake them out of their dogmatic slumbers.

8. Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America.

Albion's Seed is an excellent book but it is too long.  What have I forgotten?  Should I have more on Mormons?

Why the Massachusetts mandate is stronger than the federal mandate

by  Tyler Cowen in

Reihan Salam pursues the issue:

Reader Jim Fair kindly pointed me to an important provision in the Massachusetts law that is not present in ACA, as I understand it. The following is from a summary provided by Healthinsuranceinfo.net:

  • If you buy individual health insurance through Commonwealth Choice you may face a pre-existing exclusion period. No pre-existing condition exclusion period can be applied unless you have a break of 63 or more days of continuous coverage. Pre-existing condition exclusion periods can last up to 6 months. Commonwealth Choice plans can look back 6 months to see if you actually received care or treatment for a condition. In addition, pregnancy can be considered a pre-existing condition in individual health insurance. Genetic information cannot be considered a pre-existing condition.
  • No preexisting condition exclusion period can be imposed if you are HIPAA eligible.

This strikes me as a powerful disincentive to going without coverage that effectively strengthens the mandate. 

Ray Fair reports on China and yuan appreciation

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is the abstract of a very sophisticated and detailed study:

This paper uses a multicountry macroeconometric model to estimate the macroeconomic effects of a Chinese yuan appreciation. The estimated effects on U.S. output and employment are modest. Positive effects on U.S. output from a decrease in imports from China are offset by negative effects on U.S. output from increased inflation and from a decrease in U.S. exports to China because of a Chinese contraction.

Here is the paper and thanks to E. Barandiaran for the pointer.

Markets in everything?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Is this real?

OK.  Let's put it right out there.  Buy a Job Reference  allows you to make up any fake job reference, job title, salary, any dates of employment and any other information you would like to place on your resume or next job application and WE WILL HAVE YOUR BACK..  The human resource department of one of our established companies will provide the details of your choice to anyone who calls.

I thank Jim Crozier for the pointer.

China facts of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

As far as China’s involvement with the rest of the world goes, the real story since the worst of the crisis is not China’s recovering exports but China’s strong imports. The forthcoming trade release – interestingly due a few days before the Treasury report – is likely to demonstrate enormous import growth again, absolutely and relative to exports. This is seen not just in Chinese data, but in those from many other important trading nations. Indeed, quite remarkably, Germany’s trade with China is showing such strong growth that by spring next year, on current trends, it might exceed that with France. China last year reported a current account surplus of 5.8 per cent of GDP, significantly lower than apparently assumed as the current level by many people in Washington. In 2010, it could be closer to 3 per cent – incidentally below the 4 per cent level deemed as “equilibrium” by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

There is more here.  Resist the call of those who would have us start a trade war with China.  Some of this is tasteless and stupid, but other parts are right on the mark.

Sentences to ponder

by  Tyler Cowen in

More than two months after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, at least 30 survivors who were waved onto planes by Marines in the chaotic aftermath are prisoners of the United States immigration system, locked up since their arrival in detention centers in Florida.

The full and outrageous story is here.  Their "crime," by the way, is not having proper visas.  Some were pulled from the rubble of the earthquake and none have criminal histories.

Has regulatory uncertainty slowed the economic recovery?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Monday night I gave a talk at George Mason University on the jobless recovery; in the comments Pete Boettke summarizes some parts of the talk.  One point I made is that the slow aspects of the recovery do not, contrary to some accounts, seem to stem from uncertainty about the plans of the Obama administration.  I see at least two reasons for this doubting this account:

1. Output has recovered much more rapidly than the labor market; last quarter gdp growth exceeded five percent yet employment is essentially flat.  The labor market is one of the least regulated sectors of the American economy, so it would be odd if regulation were causing the slow aspects of the bounceback.  Many of the extant government-blaming hypotheses predict slow output growth, not rapid output growth and slow labor market participation.

2. Arguably health care and finance have been subject to the most regulatory uncertainty.  Yet the health care sector has held up OK and banks have made a very strong comeback in terms of profits.

I believe the causes of the jobless nature of the recovery are unique to the labor market.  I hope to blog more about these reasons and to communicate further points from my talk.

Haiti fact of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

Nearly 17 percent of Haiti's civil servants died in the disaster, including many senior managers…

Most likely these were the people most likely to be inside of relatively substantial buildings.  It's also a reflection of how much Haitian government was concentrated in Port-au-Prince.  Did you know that the U.S. occupation of 1915-1934 encouraged this centralization, if only to make the country easier to rule?  The full story is here.