Archives: December 2005

The evidence that tech wages are rising again

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 30, Categories: Labor Market

I'm an honest guy. I've been writing about the fall in real wages for college-educated workers for a while (here and the posts that follow). But I just came on...

Dark Matter

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 28, Categories: Trade

Anybody who wants to understand today's global economy needs to read this paper: "U.S. And Global Imbalances:Can Dark Matter Prevent A Big Bang?" by Ricardo Hausmann and Federico Sturzenegger of...

Bigger than the Tech Bubble

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 27, Categories: Tech

It's official: The housing bubble is now bigger than the tech bubble. Take a look at this chart: The dark blue line is consumer and business spending on technology (hardware...

My Mixed Feelings about the transit strike

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 23, Categories: Labor Market

I have mixed feelings about the New York City transit strike. On the one hand, the strike was damaging to the city's economy, and pretty much unnecessary. On the other...

Temporary Jobs: Bah, humbug?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 23, Categories: Labor Market

Temporary jobs are once again surging. In November they hit almost 2% of total employment, their highest level since early 2001. But temporary jobs may not be good news for...

The Stem Cell Scandals and Economic Growth

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

I feel terribly sorry for Hwang Woo Suk, the Korean stem cell scientist. In the space of a few weeks, he's gone from being one of the best known scientists...

Why Some Medical Spending Should Count as Investment

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 15, Categories: Health

I get fried when economists don't play by their own rules. The government statistics consistently count medical spending as consumption--that is, not contributing to productivity or future growth. But more...

The Big Companies Did It

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 09, Categories: Labor Market

We all thought (myself included) that the wellspring of economic growth in the New Economy boom of the 1990s was small innovative companies. We celebrated the eBays and the Yahoos...

How Seniors Will Benefit from Broadband

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 08, Categories: Tech

A very interesting new paper by Bob Litan lays out the economic benefits of providing broadband connections to senior citizens and disabled Americans. Though it is widely understood that broadband...

Short term pessimist, long term optimist

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 05, Categories: Macro

I recently talked to Roger Bootle, the British economist who wrote The Death of Inflation, and he explained why he's an optimist about the global economy in the long term...

The Economic Progress of Immigrants

Posted by: Michael Mandel on December 02, Categories: Labor Market

I did a story this week for BW on the continuing economic progress of immigrants. Here's a piece of it: The good news is that the American melting pot still...