Blog: Beat the Press

Virtually all economists missed the 2001 recession, in most cases not even predicting it until it was almost over. The main reason was that the recession did not follow the usual pattern. It was the result of the stock market crash decimating tech investment. All prior post-war recessions had been brought on by higher interest […]

The NYT applies a large does of whitewash in its discussion of President Clinton�s current efforts to promote the treatment of AIDS in developing country. While the article notes in passing that Clinton �conceded that his administration fought too long to protect the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies against countries trying to make or import […]

Okay folks, get your checkbooks out. The people who pledged a CEPR contribution for every Post article/column whining about entitlements owe us money. This one is from Bob Kerrey and Warren Rudman, the co-chairs of the Concord Coalition. In addition to conflating Social Security and Medicare as �entitlements� that will pose problems, the column also […]

The NYT had a good story on the falling wage share of output and the growing concentration of wage income among high wage earners (e.g. doctors, lawyers, CEOs). While the basic story is accurate, there are a couple of points that should be treated with more care. The article notes that the sharp drop in […]

There has been a raging blog debate, following in the wake of some recent Paul Krugman columns, as to whether the rise in income inequality is due to policy or the natural workings of the economy. While Krugman indicated that he believed the policy view (promising details later), many of the economists weighing in have […]

The New York Times had an excellent piece this morning on the fact that sellers are increasingly offering substantial non-price concessions in order to move their homes. As the article notes (and has been mentioned repeatedly on BTP) these concessions are not recorded in the sale prices that enter the standard house price indexes. Therefore […]

One should never make too much of a single month’s data, but yesterday’s report of a sharp falloff in existing home sales, price declines throughout most of the country, and record inventories of unsold homes, might be seen as supporting the view that a bubble is bursting, but not in the NYT. The Times article […]

I wrote a short note a couple of days ago about an article in the Washington Post on the immigration bill passed by the Senate. I wrote that the article used an estimate from CBO that was based on an error in the bill’s wording that would almost surely be corrected before the final passage. […]

House prices have stayed even with the overall inflation rate from 1950-1995. Since 1995 they have risen by more than 50 percent in real terms. There has been no remotely comparable increase in rents. As a result, home building has been hugely outpacing the rate of household formation and vacancy rates are at record levels. […]

Good to see that reporters and my fellow economists are now discovering some of the downsides of the housing bubble. The WSJ now recognizes the problem in part, although we’re still only talking about something “harder than a soft landing but softer than a hard landing.” But, that’s progress. The article earns a BTP goat […]