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The Advance Estimate of Quarter 1 GDP

The first release of GDP data came out this morning with an advance estimate of 2.2 percent growth for quarter 1. Contributions of growth from the major components were: Consumption Expenditures                       2.04 […]

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Student Loans: the Next Subprime?

Student loans now total over $1 trillion and delinquency rates are rising.  Many young people are burdened in their 20’s with tens of thousands of dollars of student debt.  Some commentators have pointed to student […]

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Why Must We Have These Large Banks?

I am worried that societies and/or their governments have chosen to commit taxpayers to underwriting the solvency of banks. Economic research has shown clear benefits to financial intermediation. The collection of savings creates a pool […]

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Why are Long-Term Rates So Low?

Last month the Federal Reserve released minutes from the March 13 FOMC meeting.  These minutes suggest that the members perceived the economy to be improving.  The knee jerk reaction of market observers was to conclude […]

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The U.S. Jobs Report: March 2012

The United States Employment Situation for March indicates a cooling of job growth that is consistent with our forecast, although somewhat more pronounced than our forecast. It was the services part of the economy that […]

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No Smoking, Except for Bob Lucas

David R. Henderson has a nice piece on property rights.  The title of this post is a quote from Henderson’s article. It’s a nice piece with three example of “policy issues’ that cause conflict and […]

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Human Capital

The Fed’s Flow of Funds (FOF) report shows that household sector net worth is approximately $60 trillion.  This wealth in concentrated in households headed by people aged 50 or older.  After all, for most people […]

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Immigration and American Jobs

The title of this post is the title of a paper by Madeline Zavodny.  In the paper, Zavodny tests  to see if immigrants, especially educated immigrants, create jobs for resident Americans or take jobs away […]

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