Author Archives: Susann Lees

What happens if you mix government and the digital revolution? The answer is Chapter 2 of the April 2018 IMF publication Fiscal Monitor, called “Digital Government.” The report offers some striking insights about access to digital technology in the global economy and how government may use this technology. Access to digital services is rising fast inContinue reading “The Global Rise of Internet Access and Digital Government”

“Everyone” knows that the future of the US economy depends on a well-educated workforce, and on a growing share of students achieving higher levels of education. But state spending patterns on higher education aren’t backing up this belief. Here are some figures from the SHEF 2017: State Higher Education Finance report published last month byContinue reading “State and Local Spending on Higher Education”

Each year the Federal Trade Commission and and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division publish the Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report, which offers an overview of merger and acquisition activity and antitrust enforcement during the previous year. The Hart-Scott-Rodino legislation requires that all mergers and acquisitions above a certain size–now set at $80.8 million–be reported to theContinue reading “US Mergers and Antitrust in 2017”

For the uninitiated, the idea of “statistical significance” may seem drier than desert sand. But it’s how research in the social sciences and medicine decides what findings are worth paying attention to as plausible true–or not. For that reason, it matters quite a bit. Here, I’ll sketch a quick overview for beginners of what statisticalContinue reading “Should the 5% Convention for Statistical Significance be Dramatically Lower?”

Not all that long ago in 1990, the share of :”prime-age” workers from 25-54 who were participating in the labor force was basically the same in the United States, Germany, Canada, and Japan. But since then, labor force participation in this group has fallen in the United States while rising in the other countries. MaryContinue reading “US Lagging in Labor Force Participation”

Economists have recognized for a long time that in negotiations between employers and workers, the employer has a built-in advantage. John Bates Clark ,  probably the most eminent American economist of his time, put it this way in his 1907 book, Essentials of Economic Theory “In the making of the wages contract the individual laborer isContinue reading “Rebalancing the Economy Toward Workers and Wages”

Earlier this week, the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution hosted “A Fed duet: Janet Yellen in conversation with Ben Bernanke” (February 27, 2018). Video, audio and a transcript are all available here.  I’ll focus here on a few of  Yellen’s comments that caught my eye. For those not familiar withContinue reading “Bernanke Interviews Yellen: Fed Chair as Interior Design Consultant, When Mozilo Switched Regulators, Deficit-Cutting Stimulus, and More”

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, government is higher in most of the world’s  high-income economies, including the United State. This year, the world economy is producing at close to its potential GDP. If there is ever going to be a time for thinking about long-term fiscal issues, this is it. The March 2018Continue reading “Time to Rein in Government Borrowing: The Case for a Spending-First Approach”

Here’s the set-up line for the story: Two central bankers walk into a London restaurant … Mervyn King tells the tale at the start of his lecture “Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis,” in a speech given upon receipt of the Paul A. Volcker Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association for Business Economics (February 27,Continue reading “Two Central Bankers Walk Into a Restaurant, and the Pawnbroker for All Seasons”