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ECONOMICS
Martin
Sandbu’s Free Lunch: The sources of growth – FT
If
stagnation continues, blame ageing and finance
Martin
Sandbu’s Free Lunch: Inflation, deflation and reforms – FT
Things are
a bit more complicated than how they're often told
Yellen
Confronts Economists’ Ignorance – BB
Productivity
is probably the most important measure of economic health that policy makers
know the least about.
Andrew G
Haldane: Growing, fast and slow – BIS
Speech by
Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of
England, at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, 17 February
2015.
Why do
non-experts think they know about macroeconomics? – Noah
Smith
These
Are the Econ Blogs You Need to Read – View
/ BB
Read the
comments at the bottom – excellent stuff
FINANCE HURTS GROWTH?
Why does
financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth? – BIS
We examine
the negative relationship between the rate of growth of the financial sector
and the rate of growth of total factor productivity
The
finance sector and growth: too much finance is bad for the economy – The
Economist
One of the
biggest political issues in recent years has been that Wall Street has done
better than Main Street. That is not just a populist slogan.
Finance
vs. Wal-Mart: Why are Financial Services so Expensive? – Thomas
Philippon
The finance
industry's share of GDP is about 2 percentage points higher than it needs to be and this would
represent an annual misallocation of resources of about $280 billions for the U.S. alone.
Two New
Papers Say Big Finance Sectors Hurt Growth and Innovation – Yves
Smith
MONETARY POLICY
Endogenous
Volatility at the Zero Lower Bound: Implications for Stabilization Policy – FED
At the zero
lower bound, the central bank's inability to offset shocks endogenously generates
volatility.
Barry
Eichengreen: Central Banks and the Bottom Line – Project
Syndicate
Around the
world, central banks' balance sheets are becoming an increasingly serious
concern not only for their critics, but also for central bankers themselves.
But it is a mistake for monetary policymakers to allow balance-sheet profits
and losses to guide their decision-making.
Negative
rates as global cash burn – FT
At its
worst, monetary policy of sub-zero rates could encourage a deflationary spiral.
Maybe the only policy left to create inflation is real and not conservative QE.
A lazy
central banker's guide to escaping liquidity traps – JP
Koning
Can demography
affect inflation and monetary policy? – BIS
We find a
stable and significant correlation between demography and low-frequency
inflation. In particular, a larger share of dependents (ie young and old) is
correlated with higher inflation, while a larger share of working age cohorts
is correlated with lower inflation. The results are robust to different country
samples, time periods, control variables and estimation techniques. We also
find a significant, albeit unstable, relationship between demography and
monetary policy.
Helicopter
money and the government of central bank nightmares – Simon
Wren-Lewis
One reason
why it is taboo among central banks is that they want an asset that they can
later sell when the economy recovers. QE gives them that asset, but helicopter
money does not. The nightmare (as ever with ICBs) is not the current position
of deficient demand, but a potential future of excess inflation that they are
unable to control.
BUBBLES
Monetary
policy and housing prices: Lessons from 140 years of data – vox
Potentially
destabilising by-products of easy money must be taken seriously and weighed
carefully against the stimulus benefits.
Macroeconomic stabilisation policy has implications for financial
stability, and vice versa. Resolving this dichotomy requires central banks
greater use of macroprudential tools.
We find
that loans-to-deposits and house price growth are the best leading indicators.
Growth rates and trend deviations of loan stock variables also yield useful
signals of impending crises. While the optimal lead horizon is three years,
indicators generally perform well with lead times ranging from one to four
years.
Looser
credit — and fraud — drove the housing bubble – FT
Asset
Bubbles: Re-thinking Policy for the Age of Asset Management – IMF
IMF
Presenting "Rational Bubble-Riding" – ZH
DEBATE: HUMAN CAPITAL
Junk the
phrase 'human capital' – Branko
Milanovic
"Human
Capital" and "Land Capital" – Nick
Rowe
Where
Branko Milanovic Is Going Wrong On Human Capital – Tim
Worstall
What Some
Conservatives Call Kids Now: "Human Capital" – Elizabeth
Bruening
On "human
capital" one more time – Branko
Milanovic
People Aren’t
Androids – Paul
Krugman
Is human
capital really capital? – Noah
Smith
AUSTERITY
Simon
Wren-Lewis: The Austerity Con – London
Review of Books
The
austerity story in extensive form – Simon
Wren-Lewis
Does
austerity pay off? –
vox
Many
observers blame austerity for much of the Eurozone’s current economic woes. This
column presents new evidence on how financial markets assess austerity. Cutting
government consumption raises the sovereign default premium in the short run. However,
austerity pays off in the long run.
OFF-TOPIC
Does a
Real Anti-Aging Pill Already Exist? – BB
Inside
Novartis’s push to produce the first legitimate anti-aging drug
Breakfast
with the FT: Francis Ford Coppola – FT
The film
legend talks about switching from making films to making hotels and wine,
idealistic movies and ‘traumatic’ business lessons
The Man
Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic – Nautilus
Walter
Pitts rose from the streets to MIT, but couldn’t escape himself.
How
YouTube changed the world – The
Telegraph
The
beginning of the end of Facebook’s traffic engine – Nieman
Lab
Mass
extinctions: Did dark matter do in the dinosaurs? – The
Economist
One
scientific mystery may have caused another
JPMorgan
Goes to War – BB
The bank is
building a new facility near the NSA’s headquarters to attract new talent
Shark
Tank: The lost pitches – Fortune
The Bro
Code – China File
Booze, Sex,
and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China
Twelve
ways the world could end – FT
What are
the chances of all human life being destroyed by a supervolcano? Or taken over
by robots? A new report from Oxford university assesses the risks of
apocalypse
How the
CIA made Google – Medium
Inside the
secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet
The
Great SIM Heist – The
Intercept
How Spies
Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle
News
Lab: Jeff Bezos Takes Washington Post into Digital Future – Spiegel
A spirit of
enthusiasm has infused the office of the once troubled Washington Post
following its purchase in August by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He is turning
the newspaper into a laboratory for the digital future. Can he save a sick
industry?
When
crunch talks go wrong: Some lessons from history – Medium
It’s a
little-known fact that John Maynard Keynes was dosed up on mind-altering drugs
when he carried out one of the most important economic negotiations in British
history.
Extraterrestrial
life: Yoo-hoo, we’re over here! – The
Economist
Should
humanity keep schtum about its existence?
Will We
Ever See Studio 54 Again? – The
Daily Beast
It might be
true that the rich and infamous don’t dance like the high and crazy ’70s and ’80s.
They’re still dancing, though cautiously as they wonder who’s watching them.
How to
Make Your Life Better by Sending Five Simple Emails – TIME
Between
1930 and 1970s, only the bottom 90% saw their incomes rise. After 1980, only
the top 1% saw their incomes rise.
My Own
Life: Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer – NYT
How the
real-life doctor of ‘Awakenings,’ announced his impending death – WaPo
How to
Read Intelligently and Write a Great Essay – brain
pickings
Robert
Frost’s Letter of Advice to His Young Daughter
King
David – The
Atlantic
David
Carr, a Journalist at the Center of the Sweet Spot – NYT
David Carr
believed that, through the constant and forceful application of principle, a
young knucklehead could bring the heavens to their knees
A Close
Encounter With Jon Corzine – ZH
24
charts every leader should see – Agenda
WEF
The Islamic
State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with
carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming
apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.
Big
Tobacco's Future: Big Pot – View
/ BB