There is a somewhat sad delusion floating around various of the corners of the economic pontification world. Which is that services jobs pay somewhat less than manufacturing jobs. This is not in fact true. If it were true then Baumol’s Cost Disease would not be true. Yet we do know that Baumol is correct on […]
Over here in Europe, we’ve had more in-your-face experience with socialism than the U.S. so it might be the case that we pay more attention to the gradations of leftist political thought. Socialism is a political (or economic, your choice) system in opposition to capitalism. The difference is who owns the productive assets. Under capitalism it is the […]
I think it’s fair to say that Paul Krugman has declared his colours here and can now be said to support Hillary Clinton for President. He does so on the basis that she’s well informed about economics and would thus be a good person to have in a crisis if another economic crisis were to […]
When Ronald Reagan ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, the top issue was the sour economy. Reagan’s solution was a 30 percent, across-the-board cut in individual income tax rates. As nominee, he stuck with the big tax-cut as his main message. And he followed through as president, signing a 25 percent reduction into […]
Over the past two weeks, economic analysis by UMass-Amherst economist Gerald Friedman, claiming that Bernie Sanders’ economic plan would create 5.3% real GDP growth, has come under intense scrutiny from prominent Democratic economists including 4 former Democratic CEA chairs and Paul Krugman, who is calling such forecasts “fairy dust”. Former Obama CEA Chair Christina Romer and […]