Economist Channel

A debt crisis does not come slowly and predictably. This year's short term bond holders, a very risk averse lot, are mostly interested in whether next year, new bondholders will show up, to lend the government money to pay this year's bondholders back. Bondholders can run on small...

See below for details of what looks like a very useful summer course being run in Aberdeen.Summer Course: Intensive Longitudinal Methods - Introduction and Data Analysis CampInstructors: Dr Gertraud Stadler, Dr Dan Powell, and Prof Niall BolgerDate: 23rd - 27th July, 2018Location: University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UKA 5-day course covering the design...

On Friday, I went to the NBER EFG (Economic Fluctuations and Growth) meeting at the SF Fed. Program and papers here.  The papers were great, the discussions were great, the comments were great, even the food was good. (You know you're in California when the conference snack is avocado toast.)The papers:1) Fatih Guvenen, Gueorgui Kambourov, Burhanettin...

...

DB's Torsten Sløk writes in his regular email analysis:Yesterday I participated in the annual US Monetary Policy Forum here in Manhattan, and the 96-page paper presented concluded that we don’t really know if QE has worked. This was also the conclusion of the discussion, where several...

The graph is federal surplus (up) or deficit (down), not counting interest costs, divided by potential GDP. I made it for another purpose, but it is interesting in these fiscally ... interesting .. times.Taking interest costs out is a way of assessing overall fiscal stability. If...

...

Our next session takes place on March 8th in the Economics and Social Research Institute seminar room. It will address the application of behavioural economics and behavioural science more generally in healthcare in Ireland. The event will take place from 12pm to 2pm. It will consist of short opening contributions from four people actively involved...

Is this 1929, the beginning of the end? Or 2007? Is it 1974, annus horribilis in which the stock market drifted down 40% having something to do with stagflation, and did not recover until the 1980s? Is it 1987, a quick dip followed by recovery in a year? Or just an extended version...

Two bits from Marginal Revolution on truck automation are so good they merit passing on here. Dan Hanson writes this amazing commentI wonder how many of the people making predictions about the future of truck drivers have ever ridden with one to see what they do?One of the big failings of high-level analyses of future trends is that in general they...

From Richard Rubin at WSJ:The new tax law’s treatment of deductions gives people more reasons to concentrate giving in certain years, both inside and outside donor-advised funds. A donor-advised fund is an investment account held for charitable purposes. Donors take tax deductions when they put money in, then recommend grants to charities over...

On January 25, 2018, we presented new data on well-being and self-control in the Irish population at the Institute of Banking. We conducted a study using the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) with Amarach Research and asked almost 1000 Irish individuals to tell us about three episodes...