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Monetary policy doesn't require borrowing, and macro is hard
From Nick Rowe: Monetary policy does not work by increasing actual borrowing. That is not the causal channel of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Monetary policy works by increasing spending,...
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What's the Bundesbank counterfactual?
Neil Irwin describes Axel Weber as looking like Tony SopranoImage source On May 10, 2010, the ECB announced that it would buy peripheral sovereign debt, ostensibly to "restore an appropriate monetary...
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The geography of startups I: States
Given the cross-industry heterogeneity in startup activity, it should not be a surprise that some regions see more startups than others. The importance of geography for economic activity does not seem...
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Is "voluntary unemployment" a myth?
I don't know, and this is not my area, but John Aziz is pretty sure that it's a myth under current circumstances. Hopefully I understand his argument. He uses as evidence this chart: I'm not sure what...
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The geography of startups II: Cities
Part I, in which I sliced the data by state, is here. The state-level approach has some nice intuitive appeal, but in general I don't think state lines are always great ways to divide economic activity...
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Business dynamics and the US job market: Are secular trends slowing the...
On this blog, I've been trying to describe what's going on in the US economy. This entails looking at two things: long-term secular trends and cyclical issues. Before you stop reading, just note that a...
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A comment on math and economics
Well, it's that time again. Econ bloggers are debating the merits of math in economics, particularly macro; and--surprise!--the people who don't use math say it's not useful. I've noted my support for...
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How much is that in today's dollars?
Image source Suppose a friend tells you that in 1945 their grandfather paid $5,000 for 150 acres of land in Telluride, Colorado. Then they ask you, “how much is that in today’s dollars?” I think to...
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The recent decline in employment dynamics
That is the title of an excellent paper by Henry Hyatt and James Spletzer, recently published here (ungated!). The abstract reads, We document and attempt to explain the recent decline in employment...
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GMM and the structural vs. reduced form debate
stolen from Wikipedia Among this year's economics Nobel laureates is Lars Hansen, who pioneered the generalized method of moments approach for estimating economic models. Tyler Cowen gives a nice...
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What constitutes Freshwater macro?
Image source By now everyone knows about events at the Minnesota Fed. Miles Kimball and Noah Smith have a note trying to explain the Freshwater/Saltwater divide (is that still a thing?) to outsiders....
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My five favorite books of 2013
Last year's list is here. I read these books in 2013, but I'll allow books published in 2012 (the best book I read this year was published in 2010, so I mention it below the list). In no order: 1. The...
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Freshwater, saltwater, and the econ blogosphere
Update: Noah Smith was very kind and responded on Twitter; most of the conversation is here. In this post I raised questions about the Kimball & Smith article on freshwater vs. saltwater...
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Minimum morality: Walmart wages war
source Lately it has become popular to talk about how Walmart pays its employees so little that they have to organize food drives for themselves and depend on public assistance, burdening taxpayers....
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Comments from the AEA meetings
Insert cliche about economists choosing January in the Northeast for weekend getaways (it's cheap!) First, my stuff: My coauthor presented our paper on the secular decline in economic dynamism. A draft...
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More from AEA
John Haltiwanger presented work with Foster and Grim on "cleansing" recessions. In past recessions, job destruction (i.e., shrinking or closing establishments) drove net employment declines, and total...
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Small businesses and jobs
Here's a (partial) headline from earlier this week: "Small businesses keep fueling the economy." The notion that small businesses account for most job growth is politically ubiquitous; while it is...
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Questions about the minimum wage
Following some musings from Tyler Cowen, Arindrajit Dube summarizes his empirical research on minimum wages. This literature is not my area, and I therefore have no opinion on the relative merits of...
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We need to think more about firm dynamics
I watched the Netflix Mitt documentary. This is not a political blog, and I don't like Romney any better than any other politician, but I was intrigued by something he said in a conversation with his...
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Update on the job market and reallocation (BED)
Or, job market second moments. Today the BLS released new BED numbers (I've covered these before), which now go through the second quarter of 2013. Said the BLS: From March 2013 to June 2013 gross job...
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