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Europe faces a risk of "zombification"

Propping up business lending could boost peripheral economies, but at the risk of protecting unproductive firms

Breakout in Japanese 10-Year Bond Yield

Curve Watchers Anonymous has its eye on global interest rates. For example, please consider this chart of 10-Year Japanese bonds. click on chart for sharper image Chart courtesy of Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank in Denmark. I...Show More Summary

Fed: Industrial Production decreased 0.5% in April

From the Fed: Industrial production and Capacity Utilization Industrial production decreased 0.5 percent in April after having increased 0.3 percent in March and 0.9 percent in February. Manufacturing output moved down 0.4 percent in April after a decline of 0.3 percent in March. Show More Summary

Just to Be Clear: When the Heritage Foundation's Jason Richwine Says "High Skilled" He Means "Superior Race"…

Dylan Matthews: >Heritage study co-author opposed letting in immigrants with low IQs: The Heritage Foundation made something of a splash with its study suggesting that immigration reform will cost the public trillions…. Jason Richwine’s...Show More Summary

Number of the Week: Class of 2013, Most Indebted Ever

The class of 2013 entered college just as the economic recovery was beginning in June 2009, but while their job prospects are better than other recent graduates, their debt burden is heavier.

The antisocial network?

Two economists have been collecting data to assess whether online friends are good for the soul. The quick answer: not really Eliza was the first software to simulate human conversation. It was developed in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist at MIT. The most famous version mimicked a psychotherapist, thus hiding its conversational [...]

Mile-high bid to step up to a better class

Auctions seem a fine way of assessing willingness to pay, writes Tim Harford ‘For those seeking a way out of the economy cabin, a number of airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, Etihad, Austrian Airlines and Tap Portugal offer a facility whereby you tell them what you are prepared to pay to get upgraded.’ Financial Times, May [...]

Fed Watch: 'Dollar Up' and 'Confidence Boom?'

Two from Tim Duy: First, "Dollar Up": Dollar Up, by Tim Duy: The Dollar continues to gain despite the supposed "Great Debaser" Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bringing us multiple rounds of quantitative easing: Just sayin.... And second, "Confidence Boom?":...

Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian on How Money Rules Washington

Bill Moyers is joined by the heads of two independent watchdog groups keeping an eye on government as well as on powerful interests seeking to influence it. Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics and...Show More Summary

Timothy Geithner Is Key To IRS Scandal

Cross-posted from Testosterone Pit. Contributed by Chriss Street: Specialist in corporate reorganizations and turnarounds, former Chairman of two NYSE listed companies. His latest book, The Third Way, describes how to achieve management...Show More Summary

The Savings Heist

By Sell on News, a macro equities analyst. Originally posted at MacroBusiness. One of the puzzles of the global financial crisis has been that there has been no push for debt to equity swaps. In previous crises, most notably the Latin...Show More Summary

Noted for May 18, 2013

Leon Trotsky: Trotsky's Last Article (1940): Bonepartism, Fascism, and War | Bonapartism and Fascism (1934) | Leon Trotsky: The German Catastrophe (1933) | The Tragedy of the German Proletariat (1933) | James Galbraith on Michael Kinsley: "Kinsley writes that all the ways of looking at the national debt 'lead to varying degrees of panic'. Show More Summary

Age and Common Sense

(May 18, 2013 12:02 AM, by Bryan Caplan) Jim Flynn's latest book has fascinating info on age and intelligence. But Sternberg, Wagner, Williams, and Horvath, "Testing Common Sense" (American Psychologist, 1995) suggest that Flynn misses an important part of the story. There's a widespread perception that "common sense"... (0 COMMENTS)

Kocherlakota on Fed stimulus: Don’t stop ‘til you get enough

Fed's Kocherlakota says central bank not stimulating economy enough because inflation remains too low and unemployment too high.

Unleashing growth: The decline of innovation-blocking institutions

Klaus Desmet, Stephen L. Parente, 18 May 2013 Innovation is the beating heart of modern growth. This column argues that innovation-blocking institutions weaken when markets expand and competition intensifies. The rise and decline of medieval Italian crafts guilds offer valuable insights into this process. Show More Summary

Narayana Kocherlakota on Safe Assets and the Natural Interest Rate

Narayana Kocherlakota, President of the Minneapolis Fed, recently participated in a panel where he discussed the key challenges facing central banks. He viewed the safe asset shortage and the related inability of the Fed to push the actual market rate down to its natural interest rate level as problem number one. Show More Summary

CoStar: Commercial Real Estate prices declined seasonally in March

Here is a price index for commercial real estate that I follow. From CoStar: Annual Pricing Gains Seen Across All Regions and Property Types Despite Seasonal Slowdown in First Quarter 2013 PRICING RECOVERY SLUGGISH IN THE FIRST QUARTER: The two broadest measures of aggregate pricing for commercial properties within the CCRSI—the value-weighted U.S. Show More Summary

"Jilted"

Record-Breaking Week on Wall Street

Stocks finished out another record-breaking week. The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ stock indexes have posted four straight weeks of gains. The Dow Jones Industrial average ended the day up 121 points to close the week at 15,354. Year-to-date, the Dow is up 17 percent.  ...

Is a US Carbon Tax Hopeless – Forever?

Recently I participated in a roundtable on the future of carbon markets at the Center for American Progress. The discussion, co- sponsored by Climate Advisers, was co-chaired by former U.S. senator Tom Daschle and former EPA administrator Carol Browner, and included CAP chair John Podesta. Show More Summary