After dreadfully low growth in the last quarter of 2012—just 0.4 percent—gross domestic product (GDP) returned to a healthier rate of growth of 2.5 percent in the first three months of 2013. The autumn’s drop in private inventories was reversed as companies stockpiled more goods in anticipation of future consumer …
Scott Winship’s recent piece in National Affairs, “Overstating the Costs of Inequality,” elevates the national debate over the role that income inequality plays in economic mobility and growth. Winship, an economist at the Brookings Institution, finds “simply very little evidence to suggest that…income disparities between the rich, middle class, and …
On their respective blogs, economists Mike Konczal and Paul Krugman criticize the widely cited finding that a nation’s debt above 90 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) slows economic growth. They presume that the limitations of one study by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff mean that its warning can …
Economic scholars have recently shown how high government debt has a negative effect on long-term economic growth. Government debt crowds out private investment, slowing the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) and wages. The consensus is that “debt drag” gets worse as debt rises. Like piling bricks on a sled, …
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) stirred controversy last year when it released a study claiming that tax rates do not influence economic growth. Predictably, those who favor higher taxes used the flimsy report to bolster their backward argument that raising tax rates, as Congress and President Obama did with the …
Did you notice how your paycheck shrank in January? The expiration of temporary payroll tax cuts boosted marginal tax rates about two percentage points for most Americans. That might not be a very large number on its own, but taken together with the full range of government policies affecting workers …
Too often, government policies designed to ameliorate a general problem merely benefit a special interest. A case in point, highlighted by Binyamin Applebaum on the Economix blog, is the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). HARP is part of the complex federal effort to stabilize the home mortgage market and stem …
Menzie Chinn took to the blog Econbrowser last Thursday to accuse conservative economists in general – and The Heritage Foundation in particular – of being inconsistent, since we did not share his optimism about the benefits of the 2009 stimulus, but we’ve warned of the danger of the fiscal cliff. …
Thousands of people are not starving to death in Michigan. This shocking development comes despite one of the worst harvests in memory. With little produce being gathered from local orchards and fields, some feared the worst. But despite the drought, grocery stores had full shelves and reasonable prices. The miracle …
