Archives: July 2009

The Recession : About 50% Worse than We Thought

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 31, Categories: Growth

The BEA just came out with its revised GDP numbers for the past few years. And not really a surprise, the recession now looks a lot worse than the data...

Wolfram and Financial Regulation

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 23, Categories: Regulation

This may be too wonky, but here goes... Remember that earlier this year I was rereading Taleb’s The Black Swan. I drew some conclusions about technology and financial regulation. First,...

The economics of carbon sequestration

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 21, Categories: Environment

I'm going to be thinking more about the economics of climate change and the environment going forward. In that vein, I just saw an interesting post from Rob Stavins of...

Changing Priorities: Space vs Health

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 20, Categories: Innovation

You know what they say: If you fall off a horse, get right back up and try again. I made such a mosh of the previous post on the space...

Integrated Circuits and the Space Program: A Partial Retraction

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 19, Categories: Innovation

In response to the multitude of critical comments on the original version of my previous post, I took a deeper look at the case of integrated circuits. Based on that,...

The Economic Value of the Space Program (corrected version)

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 19, Categories: Innovation

Sigh. I had to retract and redo the original post, in light of some absolutely correct comments. The original version of the post is at the bottom, so you can...

Back from Scotland

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 16, Categories: Blog

Beautiful warm weather the entire trip, and a wonderful time--maybe I'll post some pictures! I see that Peter did a great job while I was gone. I'll be back in...

Five reasons it's too soon to declare the recession over

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 15, Categories: Growth

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Daniel Gross wrote a column yesterday called "The Recession Is Over!: What America's best economic forecaster is saying." Gross, the Moneybox columnist for...

Creative destruction and Michael Bloomberg: Why being fired in New York ain't always so terrible

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 13, Categories: Employment

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy I've been scrounging around lately for evidence to make a case for optimism. It's for a double issue in August. Just found a...

There are 2.6 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. Why??

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 10, Categories: Employment

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Yes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary), there were just under 2.6 million job openings...

No evidence that older workers are crowding out younger ones

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 08, Categories: Demographics

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Are older workers crowding out younger ones in this recession? It's tempting to say so, considering that employment has risen 1% among people...

Here are the 'unpersons': Economists who want another stimulus

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 08, Categories: Fiscal Policy

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Paul Krugman accuses the news media of ignoring economists who favor more fiscal stimulus. In his post today, he says they're being treated...

Do we need a second fiscal stimulus? Lessons from Japan

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 07, Categories: Fiscal Policy

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Two excerpts from an article I wrote for BusinessWeek that ran online on Jan. 7, 2009, called "What the U.S. Can Learn From...

Can the Federal Reserve stay independent?

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 06, Categories: The Fed

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Fed watchers note: Fed Vice-Chairman Donald Kohn is testifying this Thursday on the topic of Federal Reserve independence. It's before the House Financial...

Robert Shiller answers critics of housing "wealth effect"

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 06, Categories: Housing, Macro

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Breaking a tidbit of economic news here: I just got off the phone with Yale's Robert Shiller, who has some interesting responses to...

Merrill Lynch's unfortunately timed upgrade on U.S. economic outlook

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 02, Categories: Employment

Guest blog from Economics Editor Peter Coy Ouch. Merrill Lynch didn't pick the best time to upgrade its outlook for the U.S. economy. The research note on the upgrade hit...

Guest blogger!

Posted by: Michael Mandel on July 02, Categories: Blog

Guest blogger Peter Coy will be filling in for me for the next two weeks while I am taking a vacation (at home and in Scotland). You may know Peter...

Four Unfortunate Facts about the Job Market

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

After this morning's report, here are four unfortunate facts about the job market. 1) Manufacturing jobs are falling at their fastest rate since 1946, down -12.2% over the past year....