Links of the Week - 20 December 2013

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


James Baldwin debates William F Buckley Jr
via Brad DeLong

The shakeup at the Minneapolis Fed is a battle for the soul of macroeconomics—again
Miles Kimball and Noah Smith

[and Mark Thoma's take]

[and Brad DeLong gives us everyone else's take]

On the Importance of Little Arrows (Wonkish)
Paul Krugman

New Thinking and Old Books Revisited
Paul Krugman

Colleges are teaching economics backwards
Mike Konczal

Racism isn’t over. But policymakers from both parties like to pretend it is
Ezra Klein

Paths to Full Employment
Jared Berstein

What If Rich People Got More Votes?
Dave Gibson

Reagan and the role of the past in shaping the future

My colleague Ziyi Mai writes that critics of today's slow economic recovery should not look to the policies of the Reagan administration for any explanations. He cites the similar (or better) unemployment and inflation numbers of the late 1970s and early- to mid 1980s, and says that the policies of the second Bush administration have more to do with today's lackluster recovery than those of the Reagan administration. He also claims that consumption inequality, which is lower than income inequality, is a better measure of economic equality.

While it is true, as Mai writes, that unemployment has remained persistently high for a longer period after the 2008-09 recession than after the 1982 recession, much of this persistence is attributable to the different dynamics of recovery from financial panics. Political intransigence has also led to contractionary fiscal policy in direct contradiction to textbook macroeconomics. Had the Congress taken up the monetary 'slack' provided by unconventional monetary policy over the last five years, it is likely that unemployment would be significantly lower today. It is worth noting, as well, that this intransigence has its roots in the political style of Mr Reagan, whose language of class warfare and racially incendiary rhetoric and actions sought to undermine the value of government as an institution, and whose fruits are borne today.

None of this, however, is related to the criticism that Mai seeks to address, which is that income inequality has inhibited this recovery. It is clear that income inequality has skyrocketed since 1980. It doesn't seem as if Mai would disagree with this; but he would rather talk about consumption inequality. That's fine; there are plenty of good reasons to do that. The best reason is that the ultimate purpose of income is to spend it. Various macro models address the utility of bequeathment, and the concept of discounting future consumption is at the heart of any dynamic macro model, but it is safe to say that we seek income so that we (or our heirs) may spend (today, tomorrow, whenever).

So, why not focus on consumption inequality? I think the best reason is that, contrary to Mai's assertion, consumption inequality has risen right alongside income inequality. The argument implicit in the focus on consumption inequality is that "if people can spend, it doesn't matter if they cannot save." This has unfortunate consequences both individually and macroeconomically. Households that are income-constrained, and which therefore must spend to their limits rather than save, face tremendous financial uncertainty. The rise in bankruptcies due to medical emergencies demonstrates this clearly. As Mai cites, the decrease in the national saving rate, while beneficial in the short-run during the recovery, will eventually have dire ramifications in terms of private investment.

There is, of course, a mechanism by which consumption equality could persist in the face of rising income inequality. The trend toward "cash-out refinancing," an equity-draining loan option popular during the housing boom of the early 2000s, allowed the income-constrained to treat their homes like ATMs in order to boost consumption. This was made possible by the outsized demand for collateralized debt obligations, the mortgage bonds whose bubble most directly led to the financial panic of 2007-08.

Mai is right that we cannot look solely to the past to explain our current economic trouble. He is too quick, however, to absolve Mr Reagan and his political descendants of blame for their role in setting the table for the rotten meal we're all staring at now.

Links of the Week - 13 December 2013

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Yes, the government should spend more each year
Mike Konczal

Structural Problems With Economese
Paul Krugman

The central banker who changed his mind
John Aziz

When Someone Claims the War on Drugs Is a War on Minorities…
Mike the Mad Biologist

[John Derbyshire] Hasn’t Seen ’12 Years A Slave,’ But He’s Sure It’s Too Hard On Slavery
Alyssa Rosenberg

Why guru ETFs beat human gurus
Felix Salmon

Does your job create real value?
Noah Smith

The Answer to the Crisis in Democracy Is More Democracy
Ta-Nehisi Coates

Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims
William J. Sutherland, David Spiegelhalter, and Mark Burgman

The GOP’s Obamacare Playbook Has One Football Play, and It Makes No Sense
Jonathan Chait

A brief note on unemployment

This graph shows the gap between the number of unemployed and the number of job openings, measured in millions. This is about the best indication there is that the time for stimulus (monetary, but especially fiscal) is not over. The good news, of course, is that the gap is shrinking, but 7.5 million more unemployed than job openings is staggering. At the current rate, we should be back to the previous high (~6 million) in about 12-18 months. What this says above all is that the assertion that we can reduce unemployment by cutting unemployment benefits, a dubious notion in the best of times, is downright insane right now.

Links of the Week - 6 December 2013

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Washington Center for Equitable Growth Launch Event: Robert Solow Introductory Video
via Brad DeLong

Explainer: How does the Fed stimulate the economy?
Mark Thoma

There is no such thing as redistribution
Matt Bruenig

Brad Plumer’s Redistribution Blindspot
Matt Bruenig

Given the Myth of Ownership, is the Idea of Redistribution Coherent?
Mike Konczal

The Power of Two (Extra Wonkish)
Paul Krugman

Political Questions About the Jobs Report
Nelson D Schwartz

This is why you shouldn’t pay attention to consumer confidence indicators
Neil Irwin

Dick Cheney lied about more than Iraqi WMDs
Barney Frank

The ‘economic justice’ wing of the Democratic Party: A monetary policy menu
Ryan Cooper

Links of the Week - 29 November 2013

Wall Street figured out how to securitize your rent. Should you worry?
Lydia DePillis

Privacy Isn’t a Right
Josh Klein

Is Economics a Science?
Robert Shiller

Benford’s Law in the NFL, Part II
Chase Stuart

Attention Health Care Shoppers!
Jared Bernstein

Encouraging Paid Employment
Nancy Folbre

Before the panic
Ryan Avent

Nobel Calling
Tom Whipple

Uwe Reinhardt Is Unhappy with the Idea That What Health-Care Financing Needs Is More Cost Sharing
via Brad DeLong

Why We’re Launching the Washington Center for Equitable Growth
John Podesta

Links of the Week - 22 November 2013

The Decline of the Tea Party
Bruce Bartlett

What We’ve Learned from the Financial Crisis
Justin Fox

Free-Floating Inflation Hysteria
Paul Krugman

The Great Recession may have crushed America’s economic potential
Neil Irwin

Gross Domestic Thinking
Jared Bernstein

Ron Paul Basically Called for Armed Revolution This Week
Kevin Drum

Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Brad DeLong

How Social Security redistributes money from minorities to whites
Brad Plumer

Defending rational expectations
Simon Wren-Lewis

Wealth, Health and Inequality
Uwe E. Reinhardt

Food Deserts as Market Failure

NPR and others have been reporting for some time about "food deserts," areas that are underserved by grocery stores. These "deserts" are usually, but not always, concentrated in low-income areas. A new story highlights "banking deserts," in which a similar paucity is observed in banking services. Once again, the poor bear a disproportionate share of the burden.

A bog-standard free-market analysis of this problem holds that these firms (grocery stores, and now financial institutions) observe marginal revenue below average variable cost. In other words, the firm identifies locations at which the day-to-day costs of operating the location are greater than the day-to-day revenue generated by the location. The firm then decides that it is profitable to shutter the location. Causal explanations for this phenomenon usually invoke higher shrinkage rates (theft, spoilage), or basic demand deficiencies (the poor would rather eat fast food) for the services involved. Further, market fundamentalists say that residents of the affected areas who desire the abandoned services are incentivized (and therefore likely) to relocate to areas where such services are more readily available.

This analysis fails to account for the often high costs involved with relocation. Let's try a thought experiment. If we disaggregate the population of a low-income food desert into "employed" and "unemployed," we can quickly see the positive correlation between "employed" and "available financial resources to relocate." We may even be able to infer a positive correlation between "employed" and "demand for fresh food," though this controversial and problematic inference is not material in this thought experiment. 

Regardless, let's assume both of these correlations hold for now. If those who most want the fresh food are most able to relocate, then perhaps these closures are the efficient outcome. Stop for a moment, however, and consider our relocation criteria. We observed that the employed have the most resources at their disposal in order to move. On the other hand, the employed have the most to lose by moving, namely, their jobs. I think it's safe to assume that the employed fraction of a low-income population have the most tenuous hold on their jobs of any employed person (who isn't the drummer for Spinal Tap). Often these workers must commute far to their jobs, and often by public transport. Unless the representative low-income employed person who seeks to relocate to escape a food desert has the good fortune of being willing and able to move closer to their job, it's unlikely that any fraction of the population of "food deserts" is made better off by these closures.

Is the best solution to this problem the "government takeover of grocery stores" that Mr Johnson so fears? Probably not. Thankfully, no one is suggesting it is. If, on the other hand, you believe that we elect a government to fix problems, then a small federal program to incentivize grocers seems like a staggeringly pragmatic solution.



See also:

Schuetz, Jenny & Kolko, Jed & Meltzer, Rachel, 2012.

"Are poor neighborhoods “retail deserts”?,"

Regional Science and Urban Economics,

Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 269-285.

Links of the Week - 15 November 2013

Australia had a government shutdown once. In the end, the queen fired everyone in Parliament
Max Fisher

Modeling Policy When Policy Is Inside the Model
Peter Dorman

World War II in Europe: Every Day

CEOs All At Sea
Paul Krugman

Alan Greenspan Rediscovers Keynes—Sort Of
John Cassidy

Is There Any Appropriate Reaction to This on the Part of Eugene Fama?
via Brad DeLong

What frequent flyer miles teach about central banking
Neil Irwin

The tea party’s assault on workers
Mike Konczal

Adjusting the Taylor Rule for the Unemployment Rate Bias
Jared Bernstein

A Tale of Two Fed Presidents
Paul Krugman

Bubbles of fun

Evan Jenkins, sitting in for Guan Yang, in turn sitting in for Noah Smith, writes, in a long exposition on Bitcoin, that it surely represents a bubble at this time. I want to focus on the two "confounding factors" Jenkins cites. I'm not sure if he meant that these factors confound his analysis, as I don't see that. It's more that these two facts confound the entire Bitcoin project (if "project" is the appropriate term).

Jenkins: (emphasis added)

The first confounding factor is that the Bitcoin market, as it exists now, probably does a pretty bad job of pricing correctly. The problem is that it is very difficult for somebody who does not already hold Bitcoins to make a bet against the future of Bitcoin. The only people with the power to move the Bitcoin market down are those who have already bought into the Bitcoin market, and they likely have rosier visions of the future of Bitcoin than the rest of us. This, in my opinion, is the biggest piece of evidence in favor of calling Bitcoin a bubble. In order for the Bitcoin market to price Bitcoin correctly, there needs to be a good way to short Bitcoins. But until there is a reliable way to lend and borrow in Bitcoins, that won’t happen. 

The second confounding factor is that if Bitcoin really does establish itself as a legitimate currency, we will need to throw our assumptions of how many Bitcoins there are out the window. In principle, there should be no more than 21 million Bitcoins ever produced. In fact, since Bitcoins can be irreversibly lost, we should actually expect the number of extant Bitcoins to start decreasing at some point. But, as much as the True Believers like to rail against fractional reserve banking, the truth is that once Bitcoins become a real currency, it will start being banked and invested like a real currency, which will effectively increase the number of Bitcoins in existence. Depending on how we measure total “amount of money” in US dollars is anywhere from 10 to 20 times the amount of physical currency in circulation. But there is reason to think that for Bitcoin, the mulitplier could be even higher, as Bitbanks would lack, at least initially, any sort of reserve requirement. This lowers the future price, and thus raises the probability, of the True Believer future. But is this the future that the True Believers want? Not really.

To my view, what Jenkins is saying here is that a future in which Bitcoins is a real currency that competes with what we think of now as real currencies, without the bummers inherent in real currencies like fractional reserve banking and governmental oversight (or literal control), is not a real future. In other words, the things that define modern currencies are the things that Bitcoin advocates seek to avoid. This is likely problematic if these advocates want to see Bitcoin compete with real currencies. If, on the other hand, Bitcoin settles into a comfortable role as a niche asset, like tobacco shares or Renoir paintings, then it will likely be a success.

Bitcoin is a neat throwback to the days of state banking with its minimal oversight, competing currencies, high transactions costs, wild price swings, and regular financial panics. Anyone who misses those days of sweet freedom is likely a Bitcoin advocate. None of this is to say that the system we have today is free from frictions and inefficiencies. My point is that, as fuddy-duddy as 21st century currencies like the dollar and the euro are, and as exciting as Bitcoin promises to be, who really wants their medium of exchange, their unit of account, or their store of value to be fun?

Response to Mankiw on community rating (in the unlikely event his questions were genuine)

Greg Mankiw asks "Is Community rating fair?" His contention seems to be that the market has deemed that people with different health risks should pay more for health insurance, much in the way that the market has deemed that people who are statistically more likely to be involved in auto accidents should pay pay more for car insurance and that people who are statistically more likely to die sooner should pay more for life insurance. By way of example, he cites teen drivers (higher car insurance premiums) and old people (higher life insurance premiums, if they can get a policy at all).

Mankiw's complaint is specifically that pregnancy is, for the purposes of the ACA, a "pre-existing condition," the cost of which should not be spread among all of the insured, because pregnancy is a choice. Leaving aside the fact that the degree to which pregnancy is a choice is correlated with, and proportional to, socioeconomic status, Mankiw takes a logical leap that goes something like this:

1. Pregnancy is a choice.
2. Pregnancy is a pre-existing condition.
3. Community rating spreads costs for pre-existing conditions across all insured.
4. Community rating is unfair!!

It should be noted that community rating is primarily meant to remove the penalty of a lifetime of burdensome costs for those of us unlucky enough to be born with genetic conditions, to contract less-than-curable lifetime ailments like Lyme disease, and other catastrophic health scenarios that currently send people down a road toward something that most closely resembles serfdom. It should also be noted that community rating is very similar to the way in which employer-based health insurance plans spread risk, and have done so for decades. It's not like we're landing on Neptune here. Perhaps pregnancy is different in some fundamental way from the sorts of conditions I describe. Then again, maybe it's not. This is a relatively simple technocratic question, not the grand philosophical debate over which Mankiw wastes so much hand-wringing. Perhaps, in a sane political environment, we'd be able to discuss this question and others like it calmly and reach a practical solution.

So, Professor Mankiw, since you asked, yes, fairness is being treated differently here. And further, since you also asked, it's because This Thing isn't like Those Things. And we can't have a rational conversation about this stuff at the legislative level because your political masters can't talk about this stuff without bringing up death panels and the Fugitive Slave Act.


UPDATE: Matt Yglesias adds his inimitable take.

(The Return of) Links of the Week - 8 November 2013

The Derp and Fall of Inflation Fearmongers
Matthew O'Brien

Do the inflationistas really believe what they say?
Noah Smith

Down With Lemonade Stands
Michael Lemberger

Regions of Derpistan
Paul Krugman

Show me the model
Antonio Fatas

Post-Scarcity Economics
Tom Streithorst

The Federal Reserve helped fund the D.C. Metro system. Wait, what?
Ylan Q. Mui

The Case for Paying People More
Justin Fox

Getting paid: Labour markets and partisan minds
Will Wilkinson

This CNBC clip shows everything wrong with how Wall Street thinks about banking
Neil Irwin