Dean Baker

It took 43 days, but the Washington Post did finally correct an April 17th news story that had Mexico’s economy growing at a 17.5 percent annual rate in the period since the passage of NAFTA. This is longer than one would hope, and it required much more prodding from my colleagues at CEPR than should […]

The Times had an article this morning that explained the immigration problem in very simple terms, “this many jobs; only this many visas.” As the article reports, there are a huge number of less-skilled jobs waiting to be filled by immigrants, but almost no visas are available for immigrants to come across the border and […]

I am continually amazed by the apparent need that reporters feel to describe the trade agreements negotiated by the U.S. government as “free trade” agreements. (See the Times article on the Colombian elections for the current target of my wrath.) What possible additional information do reporters and editors believe that they are conveying by including […]

National Public Radio had a piece this morning about how some think tanks committed to “law and economics” (applying economic principles to the law) were hosting seminars for judges. The segment asserted that these think tanks, which purportedly receive large contributions from the tobacco industry, the oil industry, and other industry lobbies, are committed to […]

First, Beat the Press extends its congratulations to Taylor Hicks, the new American Idol. Now, for the serious question, was the vote fair? The issue here has to do with the voting mechanism. As we know the vote took place through phone-in voting. (People could also text message in their favorites). The problem is that […]

The Commerce Department’s data for new home sales in April showed a 4.9 percent increase from March. Many news reports took this as evidence of the continued strength of the housing market. A bit of caution is appropriate here. First, monthly data are always erratic. This should be a mantra for anyone trying to track […]

It appears that Mexico is not the only Latin American country for which the media have difficulty with official statistics. Apparently, the media have been anxious to tout high poverty numbers for Venezuela. The problem appears to be that they want to cite poverty data for 2004, which showed a large upturn in the poverty […]

The New York Times had an article today that could have badly used a bit of economic analysis. The article reports on a provision in the Senate immigration bill that removes the cap on the number of nurses who can enter the country each year. The problem, as described in the article, is that the […]

It is now 36 days since the Washington Post published an article that reported that Mexico’s economy has grown at a world record 17.5 percent annual rate since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. (According to IMF data, annual growth averaged 2.9 percent.) They have refused to print a correction despite repeated calls and e-mails from […]

The Times had an article this morning about the effort by stock exchanges to merge across international borders. At one point, it comments about fears that this trend could make it easier for companies to shop among stock markets in order to list their shares in the country with the least restrictive accounting and reporting […]