I see almost nothing but praise on BE for NAFTA, and mostly criticism from reddit at large. But both seem to focus on effects to the US labor market. What about the mexican labor market? I've heard people say that it had a disastrous effect on Mexican farmers, because cheap US-subsidized corn flooded into Mexican markets, pricing most mexican corn-farmers out. This, combined with factories poisoning the environment, leads some to say NAFTA has been mostly bad for mexico. Are these accusations accurate? Here is a CEPR paper that makes that conclusion.

It's called dumping in economics, it's a form of price discrimination (US consumers pay higher price on same good as Mexican consumers) and it is a very real issue. Subsidies, both export and production subsidies, from large open economies like the US are harmful to producers in developing nations. The US is a large enough exporter and importer to affect world prices. This means that they can shift out the global supply of goods/services through subsidies, increasing the quantity sold in the global market while decreasing the price. Decreasing it to the point that foreign producers can't compete.

People give Stiglitz a lot of shit, and it's deserved when he talks about the Fed and the financial sector, but he gets that part right.

How does the EITC work? Do earners get a rebate on their taxes once a year? People treat cash from sudden windfalls differently than their permanent income- does that have an effect on the EITC's ability to raise standards of living?

There are three phases: phase-out, steady and phase-in. The EITC's existence increases the cost of leisure and it helps to bring people into the labor market because people can only receive it by working. But it also mucks with incentives of how many hours to work. Depending on the phase, it either takes away incentives (the steady phase) or has ambiguous effects (phase out/phase in). I think there's some paper out there that says the overall labor markets are small but negative.

I don't know how lump sum payments affect standards of living.

Would there be any negative effects of a big increase in low interest (3%, preferably lower) federal student loans? Would this be a desirable policy?

I don't think students pay enough attention to their rates for this to have any impact on their decision to attend college. It might also cause losses for the government especially if they reduce grad loans to 3%. So the gov't might supply less credit.

I support fewer student loans/tighter credit requirements, though, since I'm convinced the loans are the reason why tuition prices are increasing. But there are simpler, more direct ways to reduce credit. Like caps on loans.

I've heard ideas floated around about a tuition rebate, or tax exemption, for students who go on to become teachers. Is this a cost-efficient way of increasing teaching quality? What about just increasing teacher pay at public schools?

I don't see how this is supposed to affect teaching quality specifically. You'll get some people who don't know what to do with their lives pursuing teaching just so they don't have any student debt. So there's that. You might get some people who would be great teachers more interested in becoming one because of the higher pay.

But I don't know. I'm not familiar with education stuff.