The Housing Bubble Is Back … Cullen Roche is worried that the trajectory of housing prices might deviate from what practical assumptions would predict " Real estate returns are not rocket science. Because they're such a huge portion of the consumer balance sheet they tend to be tied very closely to wage growth. Wage growth, by definition, is very closely tied to the rate of inflatio...Read More
The Rise of Robots – and Decline of Jobs – Is Here … Last night, 60 Minutes aired an interesting report on the rise of robots in the workforce – a subject we've covered extensively. What they concluded was the robots we're seeing aren't necessarily the R2-D2's and Short Circuits of science fiction – the ones that become so self-aware that they challeng...Read More
Nine Facts about Top Journals in Economics … How has publishing in top economics journals changed since 1970? Using a data set that combines information on all articles published in the top-5 journals from 1970 to 2012 with their Google Scholar citations, we identify nine key trends. First, annual submissions to the top-5 journals nearly doubled from 1990 to 2012. Second, the total number of...Read More
Energy, Security, and Climate … CFR experts examine the science and foreign policy surrounding climate change, energy, and nuclear security. Bad News for Pessimists Everywhere: Malthus Was Wrong … There is a tempting intuition to the idea that the real prices of non-renewable goods like coal, iron ore, or oil should rise, more or less, forever. It's an easy argument to make, and it...Read More
The Housing Bubble Is Back … Cullen Roche is worried that the trajectory of housing prices might deviate from what practical assumptions would predict " Real estate returns are not rocket science. Because they're such a huge portion of the consumer balance sheet they tend to be tied very closely to wage growth. Wage growth, by definition, is very closely tied to the rate of inflatio...Read More
The Rise of Robots – and Decline of Jobs – Is Here … Last night, 60 Minutes aired an interesting report on the rise of robots in the workforce – a subject we've covered extensively. What they concluded was the robots we're seeing aren't necessarily the R2-D2's and Short Circuits of science fiction – the ones that become so self-aware that they challeng...Read More
Nine Facts about Top Journals in Economics … How has publishing in top economics journals changed since 1970? Using a data set that combines information on all articles published in the top-5 journals from 1970 to 2012 with their Google Scholar citations, we identify nine key trends. First, annual submissions to the top-5 journals nearly doubled from 1990 to 2012. Second, the total number of...Read More
BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank, IMF … The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The leaders of the so-called BRICS nations − Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa − are set to approve the estab...Read More
Gold repatriation … The Cyprus/ Eurozone crisis has just intensified, as Dutch Bank ABN Amro has sent a letter to clients this weekend informing them that they will halt extradition and physical delivery of their clients' gold holdings effective April 1st! No worries however, Amro ensures its clients that there is no need to panic or do anything rash (such as remove your phyzz prior to A...Read More
Cyprus's banks have been tamed – are Malta and Luxembourg next? Tiny Malta's banking sector is even bigger relative to GDP – and secretive Luxembourg's banks exceed GDP by a factor of 23 … For the architects of the Cyprus bailout – the German government and the International Monetary Fund – there was no doubt that the central aim of the shock therapy was t...Read More
Stubborn and Egotistical: Europe Is Right to Doubt German Euro Leadership … The drama over Cyprus has made clear that the euro-zone crisis is developing into a struggle over German hegemony in Europe. On the surface, Merkel and Schäuble seem to be working to stabilize the economy. In actuality, they're binding other nations with the shackles of debt. Throughout Cyprus's financia...Read More
Nobel Economist: Mexico's Economic Boom Will Make The Immigration Debate Irrelevant … For several years now, net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero. Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist, writes that it's got little to do with the U.S. Rather, it's mostly thanks to Mexico and it's growing middle class, as expressed in lower birth rates and r...Read More
China's Xi promises equal trade relations with Africa … China's new president sought to address concerns among African leaders about the uneven nature of trade relations on Monday, promising an equal relationship that would promote development on the continent … Xi will finish his trip in the Republic of Congo, from where China imports oil to fuel its economic growth. – C...Read More
BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank, IMF … The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The leaders of the so-called BRICS nations − Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa − are set to approve the estab...Read More
Gold repatriation … The Cyprus/ Eurozone crisis has just intensified, as Dutch Bank ABN Amro has sent a letter to clients this weekend informing them that they will halt extradition and physical delivery of their clients' gold holdings effective April 1st! No worries however, Amro ensures its clients that there is no need to panic or do anything rash (such as remove your phyzz prior to A...Read More
Cyprus's banks have been tamed – are Malta and Luxembourg next? Tiny Malta's banking sector is even bigger relative to GDP – and secretive Luxembourg's banks exceed GDP by a factor of 23 … For the architects of the Cyprus bailout – the German government and the International Monetary Fund – there was no doubt that the central aim of the shock therapy was t...Read More
Stubborn and Egotistical: Europe Is Right to Doubt German Euro Leadership … The drama over Cyprus has made clear that the euro-zone crisis is developing into a struggle over German hegemony in Europe. On the surface, Merkel and Schäuble seem to be working to stabilize the economy. In actuality, they're binding other nations with the shackles of debt. Throughout Cyprus's financia...Read More
Nobel Economist: Mexico's Economic Boom Will Make The Immigration Debate Irrelevant … For several years now, net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero. Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist, writes that it's got little to do with the U.S. Rather, it's mostly thanks to Mexico and it's growing middle class, as expressed in lower birth rates and r...Read More
China's Xi promises equal trade relations with Africa … China's new president sought to address concerns among African leaders about the uneven nature of trade relations on Monday, promising an equal relationship that would promote development on the continent … Xi will finish his trip in the Republic of Congo, from where China imports oil to fuel its economic growth. – C...Read More
Getting Beyond the Fed … Let us be the first to endorse the Centennial Monetary Commission Act, which has just been introduced in the Congress. It is being advanced not by one of the so-called marginal figures but by the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, Kevin Brady. The measure would establish a serious, bipartisan committee on monetary reform as we begin the second century under a...Read More