One in five Americans on Medicaid; this image does not include those on Medicare –those over 65 who get their healthcare paid by the government.
The shape of the welfare state in the USA
08 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, public economics, welfare reform Tags: effective marginal tax rates, Obama care, poverty traps, welfare reform
The Grumpy Economist: What’s wrong with macro?
06 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in business cycles, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - USA Tags: Macroeconomics
Operations Research and The Revolution in Aggregate Economics – Edward Prescott 2012
18 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, macroeconomics Tags: Edward Prescott, real business cycle theory
The extension of recursive methods to dynamic equilibrium modelling spawned a revolution in aggregate economics.
This revolution has resulted in aggregate economics becoming, like physics, a hard science and not exercises in storytelling.
Operations research played a major role in the development of practical methods to model dynamic aggregate economic phenomena and to predict the consequences of policy regimes.
Subsequently recursive methods were used to develop a quantitative theory of aggregate fluctuations and other aggregate phenomena.
Average Marginal Income Tax Rates for New Zealand, 1907-2009 (WP 12/04) — The Treasury – New Zealand
07 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, fiscal policy, politics - New Zealand Tags: Marginal tax rates, public economics, public finance
Note: Average marginal tax rate calculations exclude the impact of ACC levies, the Benefit system and the Family Tax Credit (FTC) system which, at various times since the 1970s, involved lump sum transfers to lower income families with children that were withdrawn at higher income levels at rates of up to 30c/$, thereby adding to effective MTRs.
Comment: The average marginal tax rate has been pretty stable in New Zealand since about 1990 excepting for a drop in the late 1990s and then an increase in 1999.
via http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/wp/2012/12-04
An Open Letter to Paul Krugman | David K. Levine
31 Oct 2014 3 Comments
in budget deficits, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, economics of religion, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, macroeconomics
Some graphs on the great deviation on both sides of the Atlantic
31 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in economic growth, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, macroeconomics Tags: Eurosclerosis, GFC, Great Geviation, great recession
Figure 1: Actual and potential GDP in the US
Sources: Congressional Budget Office, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Figure 2: Actual and potential GDP in the Eurozone
Sources: IMF World Economic Outlook Databases, Bloomberg
HT: Larry Summers
Friday graph: why Ireland is broke
31 Oct 2014 5 Comments
in fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: GFC, Ireland
I am planning to blog on why the Irish economic crisis of recent years was caused exclusively by government, and in particular, government responses that made an ordinary recession into a depression
This is a graph courtesy of the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, an impressive Australian thinktank.
It comes from the Irish government’s own 140 page ‘National Recovery Plan‘ published last week.
It is amazing reading.
- From 2000 to 2009 average public sector salaries increased 59%
- In 2004, 34% of income earners were exempt from tax. In 2010, 45% were exempt
- In 2007 property taxes generated 6.7 billion euros. In 2010 that figure will be 1.6 billion
- In 2009 interest on government debt was 8% of tax revenues. In 2014 it will be 20%.
Naysayers try to tell you that the Celtic Tiger was a myth and that free-market policies brought the Irish economy down.
The truth is exactly the opposite. Liberalisation caused the Irish economy to surge until a return to big government crushed it. Membership of the eurozone, poor banking regulation and the government guarantee of…
View original post 34 more words
A Perspective on Ireland’s Economy
19 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in business cycles, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), macroeconomics, Public Choice Tags: GFC, Ireland
Dot point 4 is the key. The bank guarantee caused the depression.
Philip Lane is Professor of International Macroeconomics at Trinity College Dublin. He is also a managing editor of the journal Economic Policy, the founder of The Irish Economy blog, and a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. His research interests include financial globalisation, the macroeconomics of exchange rates and capital flows, macroeconomic policy design, European Monetary Union, and the Irish economy.
Last week he visited New Zealand as a guest of the Treasury, the Reserve Bank, and Victoria University. During his visit he presented this guest lecture on the troubled Irish economy, drawing on his recent report to the Irish Parliament’s finance committee on ‘Macroeconomic Policy and Effective Fiscal and Economic Governance’.
Some highlights from his talk (also reported here by Brian Fallow in the New Zealand Herald) were:
- Ireland’s is a real depression: 15% fall in GDP 2007-2010
- The Celtic Tiger 1994-2001 was no…
View original post 216 more words
Paul Krugman (1998) on the fiscal politics of the minimum wage/living wage movement
19 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
Earl A. Thompson on fiscal and monetary policy in the Great Recession
09 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, great recession, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: crowding out, Earl A. Thomson, fiscal policy, great depression, great recession, permanent income hypothesis, Ricardian equivalence
Krugman explains why a broken window is a fiscal stimulus
27 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
HT: Robert P. Murphy
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments