In a September 9 speech, Bank of England economist Andrew Haldane looked at the role of patience and impatience in economic cycles.
On September 8, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland economists Murat Tasci and Saeed Zaman published a study concluding that the so-called natural rate of unemployment has increased, but less than commonly believed among economists.
On September 2, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta published a working paper examining whether government welfare programs displace private transfers. It finds that they do.
On September 1, Stanford economists Charles Jones and Peter Klenow posted a paper correlating various measures of well-being with per capita GDP. In a comment, economist John Taylor noted that the new measure makes European welfare states look better by delivering more leisure and less inequality.
On August 31, the American Enterprise Institute published a study of economic insecurity among Americans. It references a vast number of public opinion polls on this topic.
An August 17 report from the Goldwater Institute blamed the rising cost of higher education primarily on “administrative bloat.” It notes that between 1993 and 2007, the number of students increased 15 percent and the number of teaching faculty rose 18 percent, but the number of administrators went up 39 percent.
In an August 9 paper, Stanford economist Ronald McKinnon examined the sources of China’s extraordinary growth. He believes there is nothing special about it; that China has primarily benefitted from following the policies that development economists have recommended for decades, often dubbed the “Washington consensus.”
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. Read his most recent column here. 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, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006).
