Dean Baker

The Times reports this morning that the Bush administration appears ready to take stronger measures to try to punish China for not enforcing U.S. copyrights. At one point the article raises this issue in the context of the huge U.S. trade deficit with China. While there is a tendency to discuss various U.S. trade issues […]

The stronger than expected job growth reported for March is good news for the labor market, but it implies another quarter of weak productivity growth. Barring some large downward revisions, it looks like hours growth for the quarter will be a bit more than 1.0 percent. With the consensus estimate of GDP growth at 2.2 […]

The NYT has an article about efforts to change German corporate governance rules that require “co-determination,” representation of workers on corporate supervisory boards. The article notes several recent instances in which there have been payoffs involving worker representatives, and tells readers that this law is making Germany uncompetitive. The article does not make clear what […]

The NYT had a nice piece briefly describing how different regions of the world are coping with climate change. Not surprisingly, the rich areas seem to be dealing with their problems, while poor regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are ill-prepared to deal with changes in the weather. Since even in a best case […]

I just heard MarketPlace and Business Week commentator Chris Farrell describe a scenario in which house prices fall by 20 percent over the next few years (I believe this is nominal, which would imply close to a 30 percent drop in real terms). It’s good to hear some serious discussion of the housing market. It […]

I was shocked to discover in a conversation with a congressional staffer that rebuilding the country’s train system is a topic that is strictly verboten on Capitol Hill. I was reminded of this when I read that a French train had set a new speed record of 357 milles per hour. Trains are far more […]

Jonathan Weisman provided a useful service by pointing out that the pork in the supplemnetal Iraq War appropriation bill approved by the Democratic Congress was not qualitatively different than the pork that had been included in the prior supplementals passed by Republican Congresses. It would have been helpful if he could have put the whole […]

Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby no doubt considers himself an ardent free trader. But in trying to push his case this morning, he trips over his own feet. He criticizes the suggestion by my former boss, Lawrence Mishel, and Harvard economist Dani Rodrick, that it might be desirable to have a “strategic pause” before we […]

The Washington Post again tries to tell readers that politicians act based on their political philosophy. An article reporting on the private government subsidized student loan industry asserts that, “the student lending industry became a tempting target for cutbacks for philosophical and political reasons. Democrats tend to prefer government solutions — and eschew for-profit answers […]

The Post has an interesting article today on growing interest in the United States in carbon taxes as a way to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Taxes are considered an alternative to emissions permits which have been used in the European Union and are part of the Schwarzenegger plan for limiting emissions in California. The main […]