Archives: August 2005

The Unnoticed Statistic

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 29, Categories: Growth

The single best statistic for judging the health of an economy is what's known as multifactor productivity (MFP). (I wrote about it here). MFP measures how efficiently an economy uses...

The Housing Bubble: Bad news, or sign of prosperity?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 29, Categories: Growth

Boy, economists are sure obsessed about the housing bubble, aren't they? Pages and pages about the dire effects of the bubble popping--how horrible it's going to be, how we will...

Should We Like Chinese and Indian R&D?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 26, Categories: Trade

There's been an awful lot of stories about how the U.S. advantage in innovation is eroding, especially as more R&D is being done in India, China, and other Asian countries....

Why the U.S. Patent System is a Mess

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 26, Categories: Tech

Everyone agrees the U.S. patent system is a mess. There's a very simple reason why--the two industries which depend the most on innovation, pharmaceuticals and information technology, have very different...

The Energy R&D Morass

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 23, Categories: Growth

Everyone (well almost everyone) agrees that we need new ideas and new technologies to deal with a prospective energy crisis. Well, well, well. If that's so, why does the new...

Another Reason Why Democrats Should Forget the Budget Deficit

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 23, Categories: Political Economy

I always enjoy reading Ruy Teixeira's posts on economics and politics. I'm just catching up with something he wrote in July, just before I went on vacation, entitled "It’s the...

What our real goal should be

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 17, Categories: Growth

Here's some more from author and scientist David Brin, a very smart man. many of our machines consume copious resources, exactly as a human servant would. Hence the multiplier effect...

Budget deficit as a political loser for the Democrats

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 17, Categories: Political Economy

As I've pointed out repeatedly, harping on the budget deficit is a political loser for the Democrats...and it doesn't make much sense economically either. Max Sawicky, an economist at the...

The Social Diamond

Posted by: Michael Mandel on August 16, Categories: Growth

I'm back from vacation, all refreshed, and looking for true supporters of growth. And I think I found one--David Brin, the well known scientist and author. I would heartily recommend...