“The French economist Thomas Piketty discussed his new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century at the Graduate Center. In this landmark work, Piketty argues that the main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent […]
Someone should do something. This piece is cross-posted from Economist’s View with permission.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered an excellent speech tonight; it is well worth the read. It reminded me that at least 75% of the Federal Reserve’s communications problems would disappear if Bernanke had been willing to give a speech like this every two months. It is my hope that his successor Janet Yellen will deliver […]
I have a new column: How Yellen Will Shape the Fed’s QE Exit Strategy: After Janet Yellen’s excellent performance before the Senate Banking Committee last Thursday, she will almost surely be confirmed as the next Fed chair.Once she’s confirmed, there are several important issues the Fed must address under her leadership such as improving the […]
Understandably overshadowed by the political melodrama in the US, a second round of a local election in France (Brignoles) resulted in a victory by Le Pen’s National Front. The Socialist candidate had been summarily defeated in the first found and the Le Pen candidate thumped the UMP candidate 54%-46%. The Socialists have been weakened by the […]
Just a quick note on the efficient markets hypothesis, rationality, and all that. I view these as important contributions not because they are accurate descriptions of the world (though they may come close in some cases), but rather because they give us an important benchmark to measure departures from an ideal world. It’s somewhat like […]
I was supposed to be on Reuters right now discussing the Fed decision, but had technical problems (no sound). Grrr. I was going to give four reasons for the delay. But let me say first that I agree with the decision — as I said yesterday, I didn’t think it was time to begin backing […]
GDP drag from State and Local Governments: One of the reasons I expect GDP to pick up over the next few years is that state and local government spending will probably stop being a drag on GDP, and might even add a little to GDP going forward. However the 2nd estimate of GDP showed state and […]
Cardiff Garcia: White House wants pushover bubble-watching Fed chair who would be fun to have a beer with during a crisis: That’s our exaggerated (but not too much) reaction to reading Neil Irwin’s column on the reasons that White House insiders are uneasy with Janet Yellen as Fed chair. Roughly, the reasons are that she has demonstrated an […]
Via Tim Taylor, one entry from the symposium: The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective, by Facundo Alvaredo, Anthony B. Atkinson, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez: The top 1 percent income share has more than doubled in the United States over the last 30 years, drawing much public attention in recent years. While other […]