Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
“There is no such thing as shovel-ready projects.” – President Obama. Although some experts believe that President Obama’s stimulus package (i.e., the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) helped stave off a recession, others believe it was mostly wasteful. What many people do not realize is that China too had its own economic stimulus…
On this President’s Day, let’s revisit America’s founding document: the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence includes broad ideological statements such as “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and claims that the British have violated “certain unalienable rights.” But were the real reasons for the American Revolution…
Although mainly discussing the quality of economics blogs focused on Macroeconomic issues, the Economist endorsed the blog-o-sphere as a productive forum for intellectual debate. To give it some historical context: “Previous publishing revolutions, such as the advent of printing, prompted similar concerns about trivialisation and extremism. But whatever you think about the impact of blogging…
Two months ago I was standing in Stockholm’s Stadshuset (City Hall). Soon, Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims will be there as well. The pair, however, will be accepting the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economics. Although I am not a macroeconomist myself, Marginal Revolution has a good description of the pair. Thomas Sargent. Christopher Sims. My…
Nearly 23 million Americans watched a British Prince and his fiancee get married last week. Yet you don’t have to be royalty to enjoy a luxurious wedding. In the U.S., the average wedding costs about $30,000. Weddings in India are well known for their extravagance. “India’s legendary nuptial shindigs risk emptying not just the country’s…
The Purple Health Plan is supposed to be a “moderate” plan for health reform–purple is after all a mix of red and blue. The plan is endorsed by five Nobel laureates. So what is the Purple Health Plan? Key provisions of the plan include the following: All Americans receive a voucher each year to purchase a…
These set of links focus less on Healthcare and are instead more for my Economist readers. Kenyes vs. Hayek: A hip-hop duel The disingenuous spending freeze. Chinese Corruption (e.g., falsifyng $3 billion in earnings) Economics Journals going open-access. John Gruber on the iPad. Will we go the way of Japan? Becker and Posner ponder.
In the past, this blog has reported the average salaries of recent economics PhD graduates. For Econ PhD graduates in 2009, we can update these figures as follows using more recent data. For instance, below are the average (median) starting salaries of recent economics grads by the type of institution by which they were hired.…
Capitalism has taken a beating the past few years. From the mortgage crisis to Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme, from a falling stock market to rising unemployment, capitalism does not seems like the best economic system at present. In fact, Michael Moore even made a movie satirically titled Capitalism: A Love Story. Yet now is not…
“…the lessons of history makes me mindful of a lesson I learned as an operations-research student at the Naval Postgraduate School some years ago. While trying to develop a mathematical model to explain the complexities of naval warfare, I realized that it was simply impossible to develop the perfect model. No amount of mathematical artistry…