Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics and the Financial Crisis

• Capitalism After the Crisis, by Luigi Zingales

Professor Zingales’ essay is compelling and provocative, and has motivated me to order his new book (with Raghuram G. Rajan) entitled Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists.

• What We’ve Learned: Incentives Matter, Even to the Irrational, by Casey Mulligan

New York Times: “The fundamental result of economics is that incentives matter. These laws of economics constrain public policy dreams, but show no signs of bending or breaking.”

• The Fed Can’t Monitor ‘Systemic Risk’, by Peter Wallison

Wall Street Journal: “That’s like asking a thief to police himself.”

Education

• What the Public Thinks of Public Schools, by Paul Peterson

Wall Street Journal: “High-school graduation rates are lower today than in 1970.”

Fiscal Policy

• The Exploding Deficit Reaches $1.4 Trillion, by Donald Marron

Health Care Reform

• A Bipartisan Plan to Wreck the System, by Holman Jenkins

Wall Street Journal: “The health-care address President Obama should really give to Congress.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• How large is the fiscal policy multiplier?, by Greg Mankiw

Professor Mankiw brings up a critical flaw with the Keynesian framework behind the so-called stimulus plan from earlier this year; that is, that the 1930’s style Keynesian theory relied upon by the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration is predicated upon the assumption that households and firms don’t care about the future and therefore are not forward-looking.  Once you relax this assumption, then the multiplier effect essentially vanishes as a result of the behavioral adjustments made by forward thinking (i.e., not myopic) households and firms.

Foreign Policy

• The Afghan Stakes, by Bret Stephens

Wall Street Journal: “A U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan would have terrible consequences in the war on terror.”

Health Care Reform

• A More Perfect Death, by Ross Douthat

New York Times: “Our move toward physician-assisted suicide springs from the same quest that leads us to spend nearly twice as much on health care as any other developed nation.”

• ObamaCare’s Crippling Deficits, by Martin Feldstein

Wall Street Journal: “The higher taxes, debt payments and interest rates needed to pay for health reform mean lower living standards.”

Law and Politics

• The Chance for a Free Speech Do-Over, by Ted Olson

Wall Street Journal: “Will the Supreme Court finally overturn McCain-Feingold and enforce the First Amendment?”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• Why College Costs Rise, Even in a Recession, by Ron Lieber

New York Times: “If you have paid college tuition recently, you probably have questions. Where does all that money go? And why doesn’t the price tag ever fall?”

• Disneyland and the Texas Tower, by Daniel Hamermesh

UT-Austin economics professor Daniel Hamermesh provides an interesting “real world” example of a so-called “two-part tariff” involving revenue sharing arrangements between a local artist and the University of Texas.

Health Care Reform

• How to Insure Every American, by John Shadegg and Pete Hoekstra

Wall Street Journal: “We don’t need radical change. Subsidies and high risk pools can get the job done.”  The proposal outlined by Messrs. Shadegg and Hoekstra bears a remarkable resemblance to the Mackey and Garven “plans”!

• Incorrect conventional wisdom about health care reform, by Keith Hennessey
• More on Rising Healthcare Spending, by Greg Mankiw

Miscellaneous

• Notable & Quotable, by Steve Malanga

Wall Street Journal: “Steve Malanga writes about what Alexis de Tocqueville and Max Weber would think of America today.”

• Two Mongolias, from the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blogsite

Boston Globe: “Mongolia (the independent nation), and Inner Mongolia (a neighboring autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China) share a common history and geography, and have both evolved in recent years, centering much of their growth on their famous culture. Mongolia is a young democracy – its 1990 revolution less than 20 years old now – formerly a Soviet-backed communist republic, and much earlier ruled by many different dynasties back to Genghis Khan in 1206. Inner Mongolia continues to undergo a cultural shift as ethnic Han Chinese now make up nearly 80% of the population, and efforts at retaining Mongolian culture are being undertaken. Collected here are a number of recent photographs of these two Mongolias. (33 photos total).”

Political Economy

• Warning: The Deficits Are Coming!, by John Fund

Wall Street Journal: “The former head of the Government Accountability Office is on a crusade to alert taxpayers to their true obligations.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Financial Crisis

• The Coming Reset in State Government, by Mitch Daniels

Wall Street Journal: “My fellow governors and I are likely facing a permanent reduction in tax revenues.”

Health Care Reform

• Forecasting the Cost of U.S. Healthcare, by Robert Fogel

The American: “There is no need to suppress the demand for healthcare. Expenditures on healthcare are driven by demand, which is spurred by income and by advances in biotechnology that make health interventions increasingly effective.”  Nobel laureate Fogel notes, among other things, that “the long-term income elasticity of the demand for healthcare is 1.6—for every 1 percent increase in a family’s income, the family wants to increase its expenditures on healthcare by 1.6 percent.”

• Let’s Get Fundamental, by David Brooks

New York Times: “President Obama has drifted away from tackling the real problem with health care: perverse incentives.”

Politics

• Obama’s Magic Evaporates in the Heat of the Health-Reform Debate, by Charles Krauthammer

Washington Post: “What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?” 

• Harry Jekyll and Harry Hyde, by Kim Strassel
• Coruscating on Thin Ice, by Peggy Noonan

Wall Street Journal: “The Obama administration is young and out of touch.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• Customers Angered as iPhones Overload AT&T, by Jenna Wortham

New York Times: “Slim and sleek as it is, the iPhone is really the Hummer of cellphones… Owners of the iPhone 3GS, the newest model, ‘have probably increased their usage by about 100 percent… It’s faster so they are using it more on a daily basis.’”  The iPhone certainly provides an interesting case study concerning the adverse consequences of limited network capacity bandwidth combined with the use of a flat-rate (as opposed to metered) pricing scheme.

Health Care Reform

• Bending the Curve: Redefining Health Insurance, by Donald Marron

Dr. Marron asks the following questions: “What are the ‘specific, feasible steps’ that policymakers could use to reduce the growth of health spending? In short, how can we bend the curve?” His answer (based upon references to a recently published Brookings study, contributions by Andrew Samwick and Keith Hennessey, and his own analysis) is “…a private insurance market in which essentially everyone is covered and insurance companies compete on cost and quality, but not selection.

• In praise of mediocre health care

The Economist argues against a so-called “public option” and in favor of tort reform and altering regulation and the tax code as strategies for lowering health care costs.  I recently made similar points in my own blog entry entitled “My preferred approach for reforming health care”.

• Maybe We Should Spend More on Healthcare, by James DeLong

The American (Journal of the American Enterprise Institute): The argument that we spend too much on healthcare makes little sense, and the current ‘spend too much’ panic will prompt us to cut costs at the expense of the future.

Miscellaneous

• Some Theorists Withhold Best-Voting-System Award, by Carl Bialik

The “Numbers Guy” at the Wall Street Journal “…examines the way numbers are used, and abused.”  Today’s column reveals a very interesting voting theory conundrum related to a decision made recently by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to double the number of best-picture nominees from 5 to 10.

• Michael Ramirez’s Cartoon of the Day (For more of Mr. Ramirez’s cartoons, go to http://www.ibdeditorials.com/Cartoons.aspx):

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Health Care Reform

• How profitable are health insurance companies?, by Tyler Cowen
• Understanding the President’s legislative options for health care reform, by Keith Hennessey
• Clifton Says Health Care Now Liability for Democrats (MP3)

Bloomberg: “Daniel Clifton, director of policy research at Strategas Research Partners, talks with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt about the U.S. budget deficit and the political “liability” that the health-care debate has become for the Democrats.”

Miscellaneous

• Wildfires in Southern California, from the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blogsite
  
• Finding Good News in the Numbers on Cancer Deaths, by Carl Bialik

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics and the Financial Crisis

• What Happened to the ‘Depression’?, by Allan Meltzer

Wall Street Journal: “Despite the rhetoric from Washington, we were never close to 25% unemployment.”

• The Coming Deposit Insurance Bailout

Wall Street Journal: “Another lesson that federal guarantees aren’t free.”

Game Theory

• Pay cuts or job layoffs—which one is better?, by Presh Talwalkar

This article provides an interesting analysis of the behavioral dynamics behind a firm’s decision to either implement pay cuts or laying people off.  In light of Mr. Talwalar’s analysis, I find it very interesting that the seemingly preferred mode of action amongst universities during this recession has been to implement so-called “furloughs” which represent temporary pay cuts; e.g., one friend at a public university told me that his university is “furloughing” faculty one day per month. 

Foreign Policy

• How a Detainee Became An Asset, by Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate

Washington Post: “Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding.”

Health Care Reform

• Cut Costs Without Rationing Care By Putting Patient Back In Charge, by Tevi Troy and Jeffrey Anderson

Investors Business Daily: “Decades of data confirm a simple truth: If we want to lower health costs, we need to put consumers back in charge.”

• British Balance Benefit vs. Cost of Latest Drugs, by Gardiner Harris

New York Times (December 2, 2008): Apparently, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (aka NICE), has decided that “Britain, except in rare cases, can afford only £15,000, or about $22,750, to save six months of a citizen’s life.”

Higher Education

• What Will They Learn For Your $50,000?, by Walter Williams

Investors Business Daily: “When parents plunk down $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 and maybe $50,000 this fall for a year’s worth of college room, board and tuition, it might be relevant to ask: What will their children learn in return?”

Politics

• Redemption Song, by Christopher Hitchens

Slate: “Assessing the media version of the Kennedy “legacy.””

• The Obama Slide, by David Brooks

New York Times: “Most Americans still admire the president and want him to succeed. But if he doesn’t proceed in a manner consistent with the spirit of the nation and the times, voters will find a way to stop him.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• NY Times vividly admits that min wage causes unemployment, and gov is to blame, by Casey Mulligan

Professor Mulligan notes, “This article explains how NY schools are required to hire from a pool of senior teachers who must be paid more than entry level teachers. In effect, schools are required to pay more than the market clearing wage. The result: teachers are unemployed and classes go without teachers.”

• An Echo Chamber of Boom and Bust, by Robert Shiller

New York Times: “How a worldwide “social epidemic” of ideas is supporting renewed confidence in the economy.”

Energy Policy

• Why Oil Still Has a Future, by Daniel Yergin

Wall Street Journal: “The Obama administration is using its brass knuckles to support Latin American thugs.”

Foreign Policy

• Obama vs. Honduran Democracy, by Mary Anastasia O’Grady

Wall Street Journal: “Demand in the developing world trumps new technology.”

Health Care Reform

• Sorting Fact From Fiction on Health Care, by Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband

Wall Street Journal: “Current congressional proposals would significantly change your relationship with your doctor.”

• Who should decide whether additional medical care is worth the cost? (part 2), by Keith Hennessey (Click here for part 1).

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Foreign Policy 

• Ballots, bullets and bombs in Afghanistan, from the Big Picture (News Stories in Photographs from the Boston Globe)

Health Care Reform

• Who should decide whether additional medical care is worth the cost?, by Keith Hennessey
  Keith Hennessey offers some interesting thought experiments in connection with this question.  Furthermore, he notes that,

“Resources are constrained, and so someone has to make the cost-benefit decision, either by creating a rule or making decisions on a case-by-case basis.  Many of those decisions are now made by insurers and employers.  The House and Senate bills would move some of those decisions into the government.  Changing the locus of the decision does not relax the resource constraint.  It just changes who has power and control.”

• Information Technology: Not a Cure for the High Cost of Health Care

Knowledge @ Wharton: “Information technology could actually raise costs because of culture clashes, training, the implementation of the systems and the labor required to maintain the new technology.”

• Native Americans and the Public Option, by Terry Anderson

Wall Street Journal: “After decades of government-run care, some Indians are finally saying enough.”

Health Economics

• The Strangely Powerful Placebo

Freakonomics: “It’s got the pharmaceutical industry worried enough to fund a major study to identify the factors in rising placebo potency. Drug companies could be victims of their own success in this instance: we’ve become so convinced of the power of modern medicine, it works even when we’re off the pill.”

Statistics

• Who Causes Cyclists’ Deaths?

Freakonomics: “More than 52,000 bicyclists have been killed in bicycle traffic accidents in the U.S. over the 80 years the federal government has been keeping records. When it comes to sharing the road with cars, many people seem to assume that such accidents are usually the cyclist’s fault, a result of reckless or aggressive riding. But an analysis of police reports on 2,752 bike-car accidents in Toronto found that clumsy or inattentive driving by motorists was the cause of 90 percent of these crashes.”

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

• Positive, Normative, and … ?, by Donald Marron
• The Least Surprising Correlation of All Time, by Greg Mankiw

Global Warming

• Technology Can Fight Global Warming, by Bjorn Lomborg Wall Street Journal: “Marine cloud whitening, and other ideas.”

Health Care Reform

• A Strategy to Save Obamacare, But at What Cost, by Charles Krauthammer
  Washington Post: “Obamacare Version 1.0 is dead. The 1,000-page monstrosity that emerged in various editions from Congress was done in by widespread national revulsion not just at its expense and intrusiveness but also at the mendacity with which it is being sold. You don’t need a PhD to see that the promise to expand coverage and reduce costs is a crude deception, or that cutting $500 billion from Medicare without affecting care is a fiction.”
• Some Roman Catholic Bishops Assail Health Plan, by David Kirkpatrick
  New York Times: “Despite the church’s push on the issue, some are raising concerns over abortion and alarms about ‘rationing.’”
• Fixing Health Care Is Good for Business, by Gary Locke
  Wall Street Journal: “How many aspiring entrepreneurs are stuck in dead-end jobs because of health concerns?”President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce asks a very pertinent question here. However, as I have previously noted, the question of whether the health care system should be reformed is not particularly controversial; what is controversial is the manner in which health care reform ought to be structured and implemented.

Miscellaneous

• How Facebook Ruins Friendships, by Elizabeth Bernstein
  This essay from today’s Wall Street Journal ought to be required reading for all Facebook users!

Religion

• The Benefits of Religion
  Freakonomics: “A new study by Angus Deaton uses an expansive dataset to analyze the determinants and benefits of religiosity around the world.”