全 62 件のコメント

[–]CatFortuneにゃんぱす! 5ポイント6ポイント  (15子コメント)

Another debate coming soon. I’m going to be out of state, but hopefully I can catch it in the hotel. I don’t want to sound partisan, but this is an important one, because having seen the Republican candidates, I’m likely going to vote for whoever comes out of this primary for the general election.

Question: Economics or otherwise, what would be your question or questions to the candidates? Direct question or any combination of intended responders is fine. If you feel like they’d weasel out of it, you could attach a follow up question. If you feel like being spurious, assume they will be 100% honest.

[–]grevemoeskrHumans are horses! 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Syrian refugees are fleeing to Europe in search of a better life. If you were President, would America help take some of them?

Also, are you for or against trade agreements that boosts American real wages? Or will you raise tariffs to protect American jobs?

[–]iamelbenIn the long run, we're all /u/Integralds anyway... 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Any decent candidate would answer both questions: "I reject the premise of that question."

[–]EveRommelDAY TUK UR JOBZ, didn't want it anyways, already replaced 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

As the global stabalizing force and the largest deterent to hostile action in the world, how would you handle foriegn policy issues like Ukraine, Syria, ISIS, and Africas terror groups?

I would ask because I hate isolationism and thats the biggest thing a president can directly effect.

[–]Shiloh86I didn't choose the Krug life, the Krug life chose me 2ポイント3ポイント  (6子コメント)

When's the "debate coming soon" and who's airing it? Hopefully they'll actually discuss policy this time.

As for my question to the candidates, what will you do to fix or replace our broken welfare system? please say negative income tax please say negative income tax

[–]besttrousers 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

fix or replace our broken welfare system?

Is there any evidence that it is broken? I mean, I'm sure it's not optimal. But I'd much rather see piece meal improvements like the Hamilton suggestions than a replacement.

[–]Shiloh86I didn't choose the Krug life, the Krug life chose me 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

My understanding is that it's too expensive to be sustainable in the long term, and that we'll see a large rise in costs as the baby boomer generation retires. And there are welfare cliffs/poverty traps/whatever you want to call them. But I could be wrong.

[–]besttrousers 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Most welfare programs are run by the states, with fairly substantial levels of independence.

My understanding is that it's too expensive to be sustainable in the long term, and that we'll see a large rise in costs as the baby boomer generation retires.

So, you mean something like social security, as opposed to TANF?

I'd certainly encourage any given individual state to pursue an NIT/BI program, and I'm sure they would be able to get a waiver from ACF to do so.

[–]Lambchops_Legionwe should trade in cucumber melon hand soap 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

Democratic Debate, October 13th, and CNN.

[–]Shiloh86I didn't choose the Krug life, the Krug life chose me 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks!

[–]laboreconomist3favorite words: labor, unemployment, trade 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

One thing Vox is actually useful for: schedule here.

[–]VodkaHazereligion+gvt=economics 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

Isn't the election still more than a year away? Nothing on TV about your election currently matters, US people. You can turn that shit off, hibernate for another 6 months and come back

[–]besttrousers 7ポイント8ポイント  (2子コメント)

It's basially sports for policy wonks.

[–]grevemoeskrHumans are horses! 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, it at least seems that way. Here, we don't talk elections until it actually seems like the government calls an early election. Which, to be fair, is more often than you'd think.

The last government was about to fall when we sold a part of the government energy producer to Goldman Sachs about 2,5 years into the max 4 year election cycle. The one before that was seemed like it was constantly in election mode after the prime minister bolted to NATO, and his second in command just took over

[–]iamelbenIn the long run, we're all /u/Integralds anyway... 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

If you're talking about the Democratic debate in Vegas on Tuesday, I'll be there.

[–]Lambchops_Legionwe should trade in cucumber melon hand soap 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

default sort by top

SOMC has still not corrected this failure. Please issue a press release to put concerns at ease.

[–]Baratheon_EconomistEverything is endogenous 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

Third, motherfuckers.

[–]urnbabyurnNeoPanglossian 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

Being third to post is like being third to use a pair of underwear.

[–]Baratheon_EconomistEverything is endogenous 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

A regular Friday afternoon?

[–]ThereIsReallyNoPunNot-so-dismal scientist 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

So more international trade means more specialization. For developed nations, where capital plays a bigger role compared to labor relative to developing nations, specialization means further embracing these capital intensive industries. I've heard people use this line of argument to say the United States expanding trade would necessarily decrease aggregate employment. Is the argument bad economics?

[–]Lambchops_Legionwe should trade in cucumber melon hand soap 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes. That argument at its core usually devolves into a lump of labor argument.

Moreover, beyond this indisputable point of arithmetic lies the question of what limits the overall number of jobs available. Is it simply a matter of insufficient demand for goods? Surely not, except in the very short run. It is, after all, easy to increase demand. The Federal Reserve can print as much money as it likes, and it has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to create an economic boom when it wants to. Why, then, doesn’t the Fed try to keep the economy booming all the time? Because it believes, with good reason, that if it were to do so—if it were to create too many jobs—the result would be unacceptable and accelerating inflation. In other words, the constraint on the number of jobs in the United States is not the U.S. economy’s ability to generate demand, from exports or any other source, but the level of unemployment that the Fed thinks the economy needs in order to keep inflation under control.

That is not an abstract point. During 1994, the Fed raised interest rates seven times and made no secret of the fact that it was doing so to cool off an economic boom that it feared would create too many jobs, overheat the economy, and lead to inflation. Consider what that implies for the effect of trade on employment. Suppose that the U.S. economy were to experience an export surge. Suppose, for example, that the United States agreed to drop its objections to slave labor if China agreed to buy $200 billion worth of U.S. goods. What would the Fed do? It would offset the expansionary effect of the exports by raising interest rates; thus any increase in export-related jobs would be more or less matched by a loss of jobs in interest-rate-sensitive sectors of the economy, such as construction. Conversely, the Fed would surely respond to an import surge by lowering interest rates, so the direct loss of jobs to import competition would be roughly matched by an increased number of jobs elsewhere.

Free Trade is a conversation about income, not about employment. Sure, there is some short term disruption that goes along with it, but outside of what Krugman said, employment is generally more a matching problem than it is a problem of differences between aggregate labor supply/demand. There are more powerful forces, like SBTC, that would drive the matching problem between labor demanded and labor supply anyway.

[–]Jericho_Hill#StickyLivesMatter #OverthrowTheMods 3ポイント4ポイント  (2子コメント)

Been so busy writing my dissertation, not much time to read and post. Props to /u/IntegralDS for his comments on my first chapter. I'll be done with Chapter 4's first draft by next weekend and then itll be time to revise each chapter and begin sending to committee.

[–]IntegraldsI am the rep agent AMA 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Sorry I got those comments to you so late, hope they were useful!

[–]Jericho_Hill#StickyLivesMatter #OverthrowTheMods 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'll be using them to edit Chapter 1 either this weekend or the next. So they'll be useful for sure.

Just wait till you get chapter 3!

[–]UltSomnia 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

What jobs do econ undergrads end up in after graduation? It seems like I'm destined to be an analyst, which I'd fine but is there anything else econ grads tend to work in?

[–]irondeepbicycleI got 99 problems but technological unemployment ain't one 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

It's tough to get a real econ job with just an undergrad. _____ Analyst is a solid position, and the stereotype of all economists working in finance is a little bit true, so there's always finance somewhere.

[–]Lambchops_Legionwe should trade in cucumber melon hand soap 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

or insurance, but the two are becoming more and more the same. All my analyst co-workers in Pricing/Product/R&D were Econ majors if not Actuary Science majors.

[–]Lambchops_Legionwe should trade in cucumber melon hand soap 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I had a dream that I was going to try to apply to become a Foreign Service Officer for the State Department right after I graduated.

But I got a decently well-paying analyst job right after graduation, and then a significant other with her own career who doesn't want to give that up to move right now, so I put that dream on ice for awhile.

[–]Banal21 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have an econ undergrad degree and work as a commodity trader for an agribusiness company.

[–]alexhoyerI used to bullseye Keynesians in my T-16 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

First, blouses.

[–]EveRommelDAY TUK UR JOBZ, didn't want it anyways, already replaced 2ポイント3ポイント  (7子コメント)

The new thing that Robert Reich is posting about is that Clinton doesn't support glass stiegal implementation, was this law as important as the left makes it out to be? Also first

[–]alexhoyerI used to bullseye Keynesians in my T-16 7ポイント8ポイント  (6子コメント)

Antiquated law that had little to do with the crisis (even Warren has admitted 2008 would have occurred even with it in effect). Most of the institutions that failed were either pure Ibanks (Lehman, Bear Stearns) or pure mortgage lenders (Countrywide). Also, the crisis was mitigated specifically by having large Ibanks buy out the failing institutions (in violation of Glass Steagall had it been in effect). Glass Steagall doesn't address securitization or ABCP (where the crisis actually started), it doesn't address leverage, it doesn't address sec lending or swaps or repo or shadow banking (now 40% of the banking sector), it's just too [old of a law to hold real salience]https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/jbl/articles/volume12/issue4/Markham12U.Pa.J.Bus.L.1081(2010).pdf in the modern financial system.

[–]EveRommelDAY TUK UR JOBZ, didn't want it anyways, already replaced 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thank you

[–]besttrousers 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

[–]alexhoyerI used to bullseye Keynesians in my T-16 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I need to research it a bit more, but my gut reaction is mixed. It's true that our current system of preferential debt treatment encourages excessive leveraging, and this would help to correct against that incentive structure. There are also certainly arguments to be made that our biggest banks are past the point where they can further capitalize on scale economies, but Hillary should be careful not to push things too far in the other direction. It's certainly good that she's addressing risk and not just size, cet par there's no reason to think a system comprised of smaller banks would be safer (and arguments to be made that it would actually be riskier). I can't help but feel the plan is a bit redundant though, Dodd-Frank (and higher capital requirements in particular) address a lot of the issues she is getting at. I also think CoCos could be used to better address TBTF (they would correct against the moral hazard issue entirely actually), but they also don't raise revenue which won't score as many political points. Overall, I'll certainly take it over Sanders' "bern down the system" approach.

[–]geerussellEconomics is...not something based on generalized smartness 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

cet par there's no reason to think a system comprised of smaller banks would be safer (and arguments to be made that it would actually be riskier).

What are those arguments? Specifically, the arguments that say a system with TBTF SIFIs is less risky than one where those institutions are broken up to a level below that threshold.

Overall, I'll certainly take it over Sanders' "bern down the system" approach.

One reason I'm so skeptical the benefits of their existence justifies the risk they pose is those institutions generally get to that size by putting a lot of very disparate functions under a single umbrella offering clear lines along which to hive them off into smaller, less systemically threatening units. When I looked at Sanders' approach, that was my takeaway from it.

[–]CutlasssI am the Lord your Gold 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Meh. Probably not a bad plan. But certainly not an optimal one. You really want banks and other financial institutions to be safe, you make it clear to them that in the event that they prove to be not safe, the people running the show lose literally everything, immediately, and without appeal. 1 penny in bailout, 100% of stocks and bonds in that institution nationalized on the spot.

The problem being in harnessing the best interest of the owners to the security of the system. And limited liability for profit organizations make that really difficult.

[–]CutlasssI am the Lord your Gold 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

The price of B&M Baked Beans will be going up soon. Get your lifetime stockpiles now!

[–]IntegraldsI am the rep agent AMA 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

Today's paper is an oldie but goodie.

Today's drink is Jameson.

Forget music, we're watching LoL Worlds.

[–]urnbabyurnNeoPanglossian 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Today's drink is Jameson

I prefer my protestant whiskey

[–]besttrousers 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Who should I listen to on foreign policy? Most of the people I sort of pay attention to are quasi-economists (Dan Drezner is a good example). How do you assess reliability?

[–]grevemoeskrHumans are horses! 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

So... I've just heard I'm supposed to decide what course I'm going to write my bachelor project in inside 1,5 month, and I don't have any clue what I should write about. Do you guys have any good experience with that process?

I'm kinda thinking about "The Real Horses" or "Mo' Immigrants, Mo' Money" 1


1: titles may or may not be jokes

[–]VodkaHazereligion+gvt=economics 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Find a subject you're passionate about and do research. Spouting back the /r/BE rhetoric because you read 2 or 3 sources we kick around isn't going to be enough for a project IMO.

[–]grevemoeskrHumans are horses! 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I know. The titles was just a joke. I intended to ask more about the experiences, than concrete ideas

[–]___OccamsChainsaw___Nietzsche Understands You 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

To decide mine I tried to think of things that were (1) relevant to what I actually did in UG, (2) meaningful, (3) not entirely obvious, and (4) could actually be done. I'd been studying the North Americans NG market for a while and saw parallels in petroleum that weren't being talked about, so I wrote my paper on that.

There are simple things that nobody is looking at. You just have to find them. Conventional wisdom as it applies to specific markets is often very wrong.

[–]Babahoyo 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

Guys econometrics is boring.

I just want to be comfortable with the notation and what to do in every scenario, but I don't want to put in the effort to learn all the shitty notation.

[–]IntegraldsI am the rep agent AMA 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Yeah but at some point you hit this Zen state where you just see the identification.

[–]besttrousers 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

That's kind of true.

It's funny how little I use like actual econometrics nowadays. Once you have had your soul infused with the CLT, you no longer need the math.

[–]grevemoeskrHumans are horses! 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I feel you. I got the same feeling in Hilbert and Banach spaces. Except, you know, when you ask where you find Banach spaces in the real world, the answer is "... Uh... Wait... No, not there... You sometimes use it in statistics?"

[–]___OccamsChainsaw___Nietzsche Understands You 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I loved metrics. Finally felt like I was learning something, you know, useful. Took as much of it as I could.

[–]ivansmlhotshot with a theory 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

This may be bit too wonkish, but does anyone know any good sources that explain QZ / generalized Schur decomposition in linear algebra, in terms of what's the underlying mathematical intuition/interpretation behind it?

QZ decomposition is used for solving linear rational expectations models and I'm using it in my code, but I've wanted to finally learn about it properly. Reading papers by economists (e.g. Uhlig, 1999 or Klein, 2000) just makes my head hurt.

[–]IntegraldsI am the rep agent AMA 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

So Klein talks about it briefly, and as you say, it sometimes makes your head hurt.

For the 30,000-foot view, read Svensson's notes on Klein. They're handwavey but will get the basic point across.

The QZ decomposition is similar to the bog-standard eigenvalue/eigenvector decomposition, but applied to singular matricies. ABCs of RBCs, chapter 6.7-6.9, has some discussion that might be helpful.

In terms of linear algebra treatments, my only pointer is to look for a numerical linear algebra book.

[–]ivansmlhotshot with a theory 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks, those Svensson notes are quite good.

[–]prillin101Fiat currency has a 27 year lifespan 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I remember Cochrane wrote a paper about replacing some financial regulation (Something involving capital requirements for banks, forgot exactly what they were) with pigouvian taxes, so banks could violate it but it would obviously affect their bottom line.

I think Wumbo was the one that linked it.

Anyways, does anyone here have the paper? If so, what do you think of it? Do you think it's the Cochrane drivel he usually preaches or a legitimate idea?

[–]besttrousers 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

[–]___OccamsChainsaw___Nietzsche Understands You 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

You are invited to attend a symposium celebrating 100 years of the Current Employment Statistics survey on October 19, 2015, in Washington, DC.

Sounds exciting.1


1. No it doesn't.

[–]smurfyjenkins 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

What are your thoughts on this piece by Noah Smith ("Free Trade Is No Longer a No-Brainer"), in which he argues that the economist consensus on free trade is weakening?

[–]Banal21 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wall Street Journal is reporting that the lifting of the crude oil export ban has enough votes to pass the house. What are people's thoughts on the ban? Is there strategic value in not exporting crude (besides Canada and Mexico)? Is that strategic value, if it exists, greater than the value from increased trade?

[–]THeShinyHObbiest 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Oh boy, CMV is talking about basic income

Not all of its bad, but the talk on automation is driving me absolutely insane. CGP Grey's video has already been linked.

I'd love to make a post about it, but I'm incredibly limited in my economic knowledge.