The threat posed by expensive oil hasn’t disappeared; it stands ready to derail a fledgling economic recovery this year and handcuff growth until Americans break their decades-long petroleum habit.
Ryan Avent
Ryan Avent is a writer on economic and urban issues living in Washington, D.C. He blogs at The Bellows.
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How the Stimulus Screws Commuters
By allocating transportation funding to highways instead of public transit, Congress is missing a very big opportunity to improve the stimulus package economically and environmentally.
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SO LONG
by Ryan Avent I just wanted to say thanks to Ezra for having me here this week, and thanks to you, readers, for your insightful comments. If you haven’t tired of reading about the economy, and stimulus, and the need to make sound infrastructure investments, you can find me at my home site, at The […]
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RECESSED
by Ryan Avent Back in December, the Onion headlined a story, “U.S. Economy Continues Campaigning For Barack Obama.” This popped into my head as I read through the morning’s GDP announcement, wondering whether Republican representatives were anxious to get back home and tout their stimulus “victory.” I’d suggest that maybe, deep down inside, some of […]
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SUGAR PILLS
by Ryan Avent So, plug time. In addition to blogging at ryanavent.com, I’m one of the brains behind The Economist‘s economics blog, Free Exchange. This week, the blog is hosting a discussion among economists on IMF economist Olivier Blanchard’s suggestion that pervasive uncertainty is at the root of the crisis (check it all out here). […]
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GENDER BIAS IN COMMUTING
by Ryan Avent Progressives in of favor congestion pricing on highways and in central cities tend to argue for those policies on progressive grounds (shock!) — that such pricing systems reduce emissions, improve air quality, and fund transit improvements, which benefit lower and middle income households. Those are all nice benefits to congestion pricing programs, […]
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DETROIT FAIL
by Ryan Avent Back when everyone was discussing whether or not we should bail out the automakers, some folks were suggesting that saving the Big Three could help Detroit transition into a hub for the production of green technologies. I tended to point out that the Big Three had often fought against policies that would […]
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CONSERVATIVES LOSING IT
by Ryan Avent The conservative economists who have argued against the stimulus, as a whole or in parts, have generally tried to do so in a reasonable fashion. I mostly think they’ve got it wrong, but they’re at least trying to use theory and data to assemble a coherent story about why the stimulus might […]
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THE INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE
by Ryan Avent To follow up on the last post, consider this bit of news from the American Society of Civil Engineers — it would cost some $2.2 trillion to bring our nation’s current infrastructure stock into a state of good repair. Now to be fair, the American Society of Civil Engineers has an interest […]
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STIMULUS LESSONS
by Ryan Avent The passage of an economic recovery package was never going to be a particularly clean or easy process. We have a brand new president and Congress, with a Republican minority prepared to sacrifice good policy for partisan victory. We have the worst economic crisis in decades, which appears to be gathering momentum […]