I receive the following question from a friend: “Yesterday, I read your newgeography.com post, Green Shoots and Immigration, in which you encouraged massive new immigration as a solution for our poorly performing economy. Today you blogged, Income Inequality and California’s Future, in which you call out international immigration as a catalyst for California’s growing low… Read more

Raghu Rajan has a piece on income equality and its impact on the recent financial crisis.  It’s the same theme he addressed in depth in his excellent recent book, Fault Lines.  As income inequality increases, politicians come under pressure.  They have three possible ways to address the problem: fix the underlying problem, wealth transfers, or… Read more

Famous economist Arthur Laffer has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today where he argues two points: unemployment insurance causes unemployment even in bad times and unemployment insurance is not stimulus. I’ll stipulate his second point, but his first point is all wrong. The data make it pretty clear that unemployment insurance increases unemployment… Read more

Our governor is trying to cut public employees wages to the minimum wage, and that is wrong.  What he’s doing is essentially holding the public employees hostage to try to leverage the legislature to act.  It’s not very different from holding a bank teller hostage to get the manager to hand over cash. I have… Read more

The quality of political debate is really amazing. I’m being called a right-wing extremist because a study we did for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association does not fit the “environmentalist” view. It was just a few months ago that I was being called an ivory-tower liberal for discussing the economic benefits of immigrants and… Read more

Last year, Oregon citizens approved large increases on business and consumer income.  Now their problem is worse.  The Oregon Business Report has a piece today by Patrick Emerson: The Office of Economic Analysis blog has a nice picture that does a good job describing the torpedo the good ship Oregon took to her hull. This… Read more

Yesterday I argued that student loans should be dischargable in bankruptcy.  Given that they are not dischargable, an economist would expect to see insurance available, insurance that would pay the loan if students were incapable of paying it themselves. Since we don’t see the insurance, I assume the reason has to do with asymmetrical information… Read more

Not allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy under any conditions is simply barbaric, just one step away from debtors prisons.

the data gave no reason for a giddy attack

Economists agree on relatively few topics when it comes to macroeconomics, but we do have some topics that generate something approaching consensus.  One topic of general agreement among economists is immigration.  Most economist are convinced that immigration is good.  Of course, this is in sharp contrast with popular opinion.  So, we need to keep trying… Read more