Olivier Blanchard writes: The French are not lazy. They just enjoy leisure more than most (no irony here) And this is perfectly fine: As productivity increases, it is perfectly reasonable to take it partly as more leisure (fewer hours per week, earlier retirement age), and only partly in income. He has follow-up points and clarifications…
Are the French lazy?
Are the French lazy?
30 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics Tags: France, taxation and labour supply
Exciting New Research on the Laffer Curve
30 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics Tags: taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
Unless you’re a policy wonk, I realize “exciting” may not be the right word to describe new developments in public-finance economics. For nerds, however, three economists at the Joint Committee on Taxation have some important new research on the Laffer Curve. The study, authored by Rachel Moore, Brandon Pecoraro, and David Splinter, concludes that the […]
Exciting New Research on the Laffer Curve
Can Europe’s Downward Trajectory Be Reversed?
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economic growth, macroeconomics Tags: European Union
About five years ago, I fretted about the gradual erosion of economic liberty in Western Europe. And I followed up two years ago with similar analysis, grousing that the entire western world was joining Western Europe in the drift toward more statism. When you combine this grim trend with data about demographic decline, which is […]
Can Europe’s Downward Trajectory Be Reversed?
The economics of currency values
25 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, financial economics, international economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: Japan
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column, here is one excerpt: What else are currency values telling us today? The Japanese yen continues a very weak run, now coming in at about 158 to the U.S. dollar. I can recall when it was common for the yen to stand at about 100…
The economics of currency values
Americans Are Getting Richer, Part IV
24 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, income redistribution, labour economics, macroeconomics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality
In 2016, here’s some of what I wrote about the economic outlook in Illinois. And I shared the same observation when writing about California in 2018. There’s a somewhat famous quote from Adam Smith (“there is a great deal of ruin in a nation“) about the ability of a country to survive and withstand lots of […]
Americans Are Getting Richer, Part IV
Part II: Oxfam Is a Leftist Joke, not a Real Charity
20 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth miracles, income redistribution, labour economics, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, technological progress Tags: regressive left, The Great Enrichment
As I wrote nine years ago, Oxfam is a pathetic organization. Originally created to help the poor, it has been captured by activists who peddle class warfare. But they play that role in an incredibly sloppy fashion. In all the debates I’ve been part of over the years, no left-leaning academic has been willing to […]
Part II: Oxfam Is a Leftist Joke, not a Real Charity
Is there a British productivity comeback?
20 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, industrial organisation, macroeconomics Tags: British disease
Let us hope: Britain is seeing early signs of a long-awaited turnaround of its productivity woes, according to an alternative measure that suggests output per hour worked has risen at a pace not seen since before the financial crisis. The Resolution Foundation said a “blistering” productivity surge has been masked by problems with official statistics and pointed…
Is there a British productivity comeback?
AI, labor markets, and wages
18 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality Tags: creative destruction, pessimist bias
There is a new and optimistic paper by Lukas Althoff and Hugo Reichardt: Artificial intelligence is changing which tasks workers do and how they do them. Predicting its labor market consequences requires understanding how technical change affects workers’ productivity across tasks, how workers adapt by changing occupations and acquiring new skills, and how wages adjust…
AI, labor markets, and wages
Yellen on Fiscal Dominance
17 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, financial economics, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, monetary economics
“Fiscal dominance” refers to a situation where government debt grows so large that the nation’s central bank feels that it has little choice except to focus on making sure the government does not default–even if it means a surge of inflation. Janet Yellen described the issue and risks of fiscal dominance concisely in her comments…
Yellen on Fiscal Dominance
In His Quest for Easy-Money Policy, Trump Launches Lawfare Against the Federal Reserve
14 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - USA Tags: monetary policy
When he first ran for President, I observed that Trump was a big-government Republican. This doesn’t mean he’s part of the moderate GOP establishment, like Bush and Romney. But it does mean that there is considerable overlap in terms of supporting bad policy, as indicated by my last two columns. Yesterday, I wrote about his […]
In His Quest for Easy-Money Policy, Trump Launches Lawfare Against the Federal Reserve
Reserve Bank sees sense
08 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in business cycles, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand
The Reserve Bank announced: “Following the completion of the review commissioned by the Board in March, we are pleased to announce modernised capital rules that will support an efficient and resilient financial system,” said Rodger Finlay, Chair of the RBNZ Board. “We recalibrated our risk appetite to have regard to our new Financial Policy Remit,…
Reserve Bank sees sense
Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?
06 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in econometerics, economic history, international economics, macroeconomics
Here is another piece for “contrarian Tuesday,” like it or not: We construct an international panel data set comprising three distinct yet plausible measures of government indebtedness: the debt-to-GDP, the interest-to-GDP, and the debt-to-equity ratios. Our analysis reveals that these measures yield differing conclusions about recent trends in government indebtedness. While the debt-to-GDP ratio has…
Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?
US Growth: From Hours Worked or Productivity Gains?
30 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics
US economic growth can be divided into two parts: more hours worked, or more productivity per hour worked. In the past, the US labor force has been rising over time: the US labor force totaled 107 million people in 1980, 142 million in 2000, and was up to 171 million this year. However, after several…
US Growth: From Hours Worked or Productivity Gains?
Celebrating Two Years of Libertarian Success in Argentina
27 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, budget deficits, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Public Choice, rentseeking, unemployment Tags: Argentina
As explained in my four-part series (here, here, here, and here) and in this clip from a recent interview, Javier Milei’s first two years have been amazingly successful. There are two points in the interview that deserve emphasis. First, Javier Milei’s libertarian policies already have been extremely beneficial for the Argentine economy. Inflation has dramatically […]
Celebrating Two Years of Libertarian Success in Argentina
AI summary of my living wage paper
24 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, income redistribution, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, minimum wage, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: living wage
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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