I t has been amusing to watch the natural rate of unemployment come down. Two years ago, the community of respectable economists held-though with exceptions including Robert Eisner of Northwestern, Ray Fair at Yale, Harvard’s James Medoff, and myself-that 6 percent unemployment was as low as the economy could go without triggering inflation. This meant, […]
Economic Policy
Posted inEconomic Policy
Special Report: The Crime Debate
I n places as diverse as Anchorage and El Paso, Nassau County and New Orleans, get-tough prosecutors are promising to ban plea bargaining. Too many criminals get off easy, they insist; take away plea bargains, and more will get the punishments they deserve. But these officials may want to consider what happened in the Bronx […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Limits of Markets
The claim that the freest market produces the best economic and social outcome is the centerpiece of the conservative political resurgence. But without government intervention, the market can destroy a lot of things–including itself.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Hidden Kingdom: Disney’s Political Blueprint
Walt Disney dubbed one of his attractions the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), but the name might better describe his design for private government.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Contract and the Consumer
The conservatives haven’t made “tort reform” a crusade to stop a flood of products liability litigation. There is no such flood. This is a straight payoff to their benefactors.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Gingrich’s Time Bomb: The Consequences of the Contract
Did anyone read the fine print? The Contract with America has been devilishly constructed with provisions that will set off a fiscal — and social — explosion years from now.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Our NAIRU Limit: The Governing Myth of Economic Policy
It’s now a familiar story: The Fed raises interest rates to slow the economy. But new research suggests that we are needlessly sacrificing prosperity on the altar of false economic assumptions.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Behind the Numbers: Class Dismissed?
The Democrats have hinged their political strategy upon the empirically shaky notion that most Americans consider themselves middle class. The consequences are not just rhetorical.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Do Poor Women Have a Right to Bear Children?
The current movement to reform welfare implies an uncomfortable thought: Perhaps poor women don’t have the right to bear children. Are we really prepared to say that?