A March 7 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the spillover effects from research and development are larger than previously estimated. It finds the direct rate of return is 22 percent, the indirect rate is 37 percent, and the social rate of return is 59 percent. Since firms can only capture the direct return, society does not get nearly as much R&D as it needs.
A March 4 analysis from the Brookings Institution examined the problem of declining earnings by men over the last 30 years.
A March 4 working paper by economists Morris Kleiner and Alan Krueger found that occupational licensing increases the wages of those with licenses by 18 percent.
In a March 4 commentary, International Monetary Fund chief economist Oliver Blanchard discussed some of the ways in which the recent economic crisis has changed the way macroeconomists look at the world.
And on March 4, the Federal Reserve Board published a working paper which found that the real return to corporate equity has fallen by about a third over the last 40 years.
On March 3, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago released a study which estimated that extended unemployment benefits raised the unemployment rate by about a percentage point.
In a March 2 commentary, University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan said that final data on the gross domestic product for 2010 prove that the Recovery Act did very little to stimulate the economy and may have inhibited it.
Also on March 2, Towers Watson issued a report on employee benefits issues in Congress.
On March 1, the White House issued a report on social and economic indicators relating to women in America.
Bruce Bartlett is an American historian and columnist who focuses on the intersection between politics and economics. He blogs daily and writes a weekly column at The Fiscal Times. Bartlett has written for Forbes Magazine and Creators Syndicate, and his work is informed by many years in government, including as a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House. He is the author of seven books including the New York Times best-seller, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006).
