We all know about the skills shortage. Many employers can’t find workers with the necessary skills. For example, the NYT can’t find columnists who understand economics, so they had to hire Bret Stephens instead. Mr. Stephens is angry that many people won’t join him in celebrating the decision by Apple and other big companies to […]
Actually,workers’ wages are growing
In recent weeks, several economists have attempted to answer a question that has been gnawing at our field for years: Why aren’t wages growing? Although these analyses – in the New York Times, Bloomberg and elsewhere – do seize on dire problems contributing to the overall rise in inequality, they ignore a recent development: Wages […]
Ubers repudiation is the moment for the US to finally start regulating the so-called sharing economy
Travis Kalanick’s forced resignation as the CEO of Uber is a great symbolic end to the adolescence of the “sharing” economy. Uber and other companies that claimed space in this invented arena may now have to acknowledge that they are not actually new and different from everything that went before them. And the rules that […]
Instead of taxes, make corporations pay government with stock
President Trump and Congress will soon take up the job of reforming the tax code, with particular attention to corporate taxes. Since a substantial portion of the corporate income tax is paid by wealthy shareholders, many of us are concerned that “reform” actually means reducing the tax burden for the 1% — and leaving a […]
The economics of the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have vowed to repeal, was crafted to overcome two basic problems in the provision of health care in the United States. First, the costs are incredibly skewed, with just 10 percent of patients accounting for almost two thirds of the nation’s healthcare […]
Financing infrastructure: Trumps plan seems like a joke
While Trump is right to emphasize the need for more and better infrastructure, his program is not the way to address the problem. There is much research showing the benefits of spending on traditional infrastructure such as roads and bridges. There are also likely to be large gains from less traditional areas like broadband, […]
We dont need Washington to fix bloated CEO pay
The outcome of the presidential election dashed the hopes of many people expecting measures to reverse the four-decade long growth of inequality. Few expect Donald Trump to be an ally in efforts to rein in incomes at the top and boost the income of ordinary workers. While there is always the possibility that we can […]
Inequality as policy
Globalization and technology are routinely cited as drivers of inequality over the last four decades. While the relative importance of these causes is disputed, both are often viewed as natural and inevitable products of the working of the economy, rather than as the outcomes of deliberate policy. In fact, both the course of globalization and […]
Trumps economic agenda: mostly, more of the same
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gave his first major economic address on Monday. Most of the speech was devoted to putting forward a more or less standard set of Republican policies – Trump promised large tax cuts that would primarily benefit higher-income taxpayers, ending the Affordable Care Act and curtailing government regulation. But he also […]
Will the EU finally turn away from austerity in the wake of Brexit?
Voters in the United Kingdom caught almost everyone by surprise with their decision to leave the European Union. The push for Brexit was driven by nationalistic, xenophobic and racist sentiments. There is no point in putting a pretty face on it. But this vote is now a fait accompli. The question is how the leadership […]