Dan Liu and Christopher M. Meissner: Market Potential and the Rise of US Productivity Leadership: "The US advantage in per capita output, apparent from the late 19th century, is frequently attributed to its relatively large domestic market. We construct market potential measures for the US and 26 other countries between 1880 and 1913 based on a general equilibrium model of production and trade. When compared to other leading economies in 1900, the year around which the US overtakes Britain in productivity leadership, the US does not have the overwhelming lead in market potential that it has in GDP per capita. Still, market potential is positively related to the cross-country distribution of income per capita, but the impact of market potential is likely to be very heterogeneous. We illustrate this in a quantitative calculation of the welfare gains from removing international borders in 1900 within a parsimonious general equilibrium trade model. While there are gains from trade for all nations, the largest European countries do not close their per capita income gaps with the US after this hypothetical rise in market potential. On the other hand, many small countries could have done so."
Mark Thoma: Economist's View: So Much for 'Economic Uncertainty': "It's hard to count all of the really bad predictions Republicans have made about interest rates, inflation, uncertainty, and so on in their attempt to use the recession to make ideological and political gains. But people still seem to listen. It's not the uncertainty about what might happen as much as it's policy, what actually has happened -- austerity during a recession -- that's problematic. Now we are about to get more austerity that is ill-timed -- as Ben Bernanke said this week it's far too front-loaded -- and very poorly designed. It was constructed after all to motivate parties to action, so it is intentionally loathsome. The Fed can be frustrating. Congress, the modern Republican contingent in particular, is ridiculous. It's hurting our ability to recover from the recession and provide jobs for millions of unemployed workers struggling to make ends meet each month."
Mark Mazower: Italy exposes wider crisis of democracy: "Those preaching austerity are contributing to a political meltdown"
Jonathan Bernstein: >A plain blog about politics: Read Stuff, You Should: And Brad DeLong on Amity Shlaes and Calvin Coolidge. It's a good thing he stopped reading before he got to the point where she blames FDR for the Depression. Not for prolonging it. Just for the Depression.
Samuel Goldman: An Inconvenient Truth: The Bush Administration Was a Disaster: "The farewell essay by editor Tod Lindberg in the final issue suffers from the same defect…. Lindberg gets some important things right, including his argument that the counter-culture of the ’60s is now simply the culture–and that political resistance to the sexual revolution is therefore doomed. The trouble with his analysis is that it operates almost entirely on the level of ideas. In consequence, it misses the main strength of the contemporary Left: the evident failure of (ostensibly) conservative government under the Bush Administration…. Most Americans remember the Bush years as a period of expanding government, ruinous war, and economic collapse. They voted for Obama the first time as a repudiation of those developments. Many did so a second time because most Republicans continue to pretend that they never happened. Yet Lindberg’s essay contain only oblique references…. It’s simply not credible to argue that conservatives want to preserve liberty and prosperity when neither has flourished under their favored politicians or policies. No analysis of the strength of Left is complete unless it is combined with an account of the implosion of the Right."
Ryan Avent: Labour markets: The robot menace | Greg Sargent: Our deeply unbalanced fiscal debate | * Mark Thoma:* Economist's View: FRBSF Conference: The Past and Future of Monetary Policy | Ben Bernanke: Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress
On March 1, 2013:
- LIVEBLOGGING WORLD WAR II: MARCH 1, 1943 http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/03/liveblogging-world-war-ii-march-1-1943.html
- NOTED FOR MARCH 1, 2013 http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/02/noted-for-march-1-2013-1.html
- EZRA KLEIN GETS ONE WRONG: HE THINKS WHAT WE HAVE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/03/ezra-klein-gets-one-wrong-he-thinks-what-we-have-is-a-failure-to-communicate.html
- THE SMART AND WITTY MICHELLE GOLDBERG SAYS: SHERYL SANDBERG’S "LEAN IN" IS REASONABLE, THOUGHTFUL, AND NECESSARY http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/03/the-smart-and-witty-michelle-goldberg-says-sheryl-sandbergs-lean-in-is-reasonable-thoughtful-and-necessary.html
- Friday Music: Beyonce: If I Were a Boy http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/03/beyonce-if-i-were-a-boy.html
