Category Archives: Uncategorized

Studies of income inequality use different measures of income, and unsurprisingly, reach some different results. Steven J. Rose lays out some differences in the major studies looking at changes in inequality of US income since 1979 in “How Different Studies Measure Income Inequality in the US,” just by the Urban Institute (December 2018). This tableContinue reading “US Income Inequality Through the Prism of Different Studies”

Timur Kuran “critically evaluates the analytic literature concerned with causal connections between Islam and economic performance” in his essay “Islam and Economic Performance: Historical and Contemporary Links,” published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Literature (December 2018, 56:4, pp. 1292�1359). He is not interested in sweeping generalizations, but rather in discussing workContinue reading “Economic Effects of Islam”

“Welfare” was a common label for what used to be Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which in the 1996 “welfare reform” legislation morphed into Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). A common concern at the time was that too many welfare recipients were capable of holding jobs–especially in the relatively healthy labor marketContinue reading “The Diminution of Welfare as an Anti-Poverty Tool”

As an overall pattern over the decades, spending in the US health care has been rising, both on a per person basis and as a share of GDP, and a number of health outcomes have improved. Are the benefits worth the costs? Jeffrey Selberg, Bradley Sawyer, Cynthia Cox, Marco Ramirez, Gary Claxton and Larry Levitt tackle the question “A generation ofContinue reading “US Health and Healthcare Spending in the Last 25 Years: Gains and Costs”

A sizeable portion of the US discussions about economic policy toward China seem to me based on two conceptual mistakes. One mistake is that China’s rapid economic growth fundamentally depends on trade with the US. The other mistake is that the bulk of US economic problems depend in some fundamental way on trade with China.  Continue reading “US Not the Source of China’s Growth, China Not the Source of America’s Problems”

“The 2017 Tax Act, sometimes called the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, has been heralded by some as historic reform and by others as Armageddon. This Collection analyzes the Act, exploring the process by which it was passed, the values that undergird its policies, and how specific provisions will affect the structure of the U.S.Continue reading “Excavating Layers of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017”

The total number of unauthorized immigrants in the US climbed very rapidly in the 1990s and early 2000, but peaked around 2007, and has declined since then. Jeffrey S. Passel and D�Vera Cohn report details in “U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Total Dips to Lowest Level in a Decade,” just published by the Pew Research Center (NovemberContinue reading “Unauthorized Immigrants to US Continues to Decline”

Americans are moving less, although the reasons aren’t clear. The US Census Bureau has just released an updated set of tables and graphs showing the trend. For example, here’s the overall pattern. The blue bars show the total number of movers (measured on the left axis) while the black line shows the mover rate relativeContinue reading “Snapshots of Falling US Mobility”

When explaining or teaching about measures of inflation, a usual starting point is to talk about a “basket” of goods–for example, a combination of goods that reasonably represents a typical pattern of consumption for urban households underlies the Consumer Price Index. Basic measures of inflation look at what it would cost to purchase this sameContinue reading “Some Alternative Baskets of Goods for Measuring Inflation”

On average, women around the world are paid 15.6% per hour less than men. The Global Wage Report 2018-2019, just published by the International Labour Organization, devotes two main chapters to the theme “What lies behind gender pay gaps.” The general tone of the report sounds like this (citations omitted for readability): “[I]t is understood thatContinue reading “Gender Wage Gaps Around the World”