Why the Federal Reserves job will get harder on August 21, 2017With the term of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair ending next February, the president will have to nominate and the Senate will have to confirm a new head of the central bank in coming months. There is much discussion of the merits and implications of possible candidates for the job. For Donald Trump and […]
A word of advice for the Fed be cautious on May 15, 2017Friday’s employment report was generally strong, with job growth of 211,000, declining unemployment and a drop in the number of workers involuntarily confined to part-time work. These data, along with indications that growth in the second quarter is likely to come in above 3 percent, suggest the economy is reasonably robust. But they present difficult […]
The most important economic challenge that China poses on April 17, 2017President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have now completed their first summit. Observers on both sides seem to be relieved. If no diplomatic breakthroughs on major issues were achieved, it is also the case that there were no outward displays of truculence from either side. Neither high hopes nor great fears have been realized. […]
Picking on robots wont deal with job destruction on March 13, 2017I usually agree with Bill Gates on matters of public policy and admire his emphasis on the combined power of markets and technology. But I think he went seriously astray in a recent interview when he proposed, without apparent irony, a tax on robots to cushion worker dislocation and limit inequality. The Microsoft co-founder is […]
US tax reform is vital but Donald Trumps plan is flawed on January 16, 2017Corporate tax reform has rightly been identified by both the President-elect and Congress as an immediate priority. There is no doubt that the status quo – where America has the highest statutory rate among major countries and companies hoard cash overseas – can be improved on. Unfortunately, the reforms identified by Paul Ryan, speaker of […]
Trump and Ryan are right to tackle corporate taxes but their approach would do harm on January 16, 2017Corporate tax reform has rightly been identified by the president-elect and congressional majority as an immediate priority. There is no question that the status quo – with the United States having the highest statutory corporate-tax rate among major countries and companies holding huge cash hoards abroad while awaiting a break on repatriation – can be […]
On tax reform, take a page from Ronald Reagan on December 11, 2016Just as Ronald Reagan’s landmark 1986?bipartisan tax reform increased simplicity, fairness and economic efficiency by broadening the tax base and reducing rates, today tax reform has the potential to help American families and the economy. Properly designed, revenue-neutral reforms could help to offset the dramatic increases in inequality that have taken place over a generation, […]
Growth and fairness aren’t a trade-off on August 15, 2016 Issues of inequality, fairness, middle-class living standards and job creation have been central to the US presidential campaign. Rightly so. For many years, the incomes of all groups tended to move together. Indeed, as a graduate student in the late 1970s, I was taught that it was a “stylized fact” that the shares of […]
Economic policymakers are at sea on inflation on March 14, 2016 Here is a thought experiment that illuminates the challenges facing macroeconomic policymakers in the United States and the rest of the industrial world. Imagine that in a brief period, inflation expectations around the industrial world, as inferred from the indexed bond market or the inflation swaps market, rose by nearly 50 basis points to […]