Blog: Beat the Press

The initial reports on the Fed’s release of consumer credit data for May focused on the slow 2.4 percent annual rate of growth reported for the month. This reporting misses the boat. There are two major components to consumer credit. The non-revolving component is primarily car loans. This component fell at a 2.0 percent annual […]

For those who want to read more of my ramblings, I am guest blogging at the Drum Major Institute this week. –Dean Baker

Okay, I tricked you. The Washington Post ran an article reporting that the wages of high-skilled workers in the Washington area are rising far more rapidly than the wages of less-skilled workers. It attributes this fact primarily to technology that has reduced the demand for less-skilled workers. Those who believe in market forces would see […]

The NYT magazine had a pretty good piece summing up the state of the academic debate on the impact of immigration on the labor market. I have two quick observations. The piece, like the literature, largely ignores the impact of immigration on housing costs. This is important, because housing is a large chunk of people’s […]

There was a larger than expected jump of 8 cents in the average hourly wage reported for June. This left some folks scrambling for an explanation. The Washington Post found a creative one, courtesy of “some analysts.” According to these analysts, the more rapid wage growth in June is partly explained by a change in […]

The Washington Post had an interesting piece about whether it still makes sense for the government to mint pennies, given how much they cost to make relative to their value. The article might have asked the same question about the dollar bill. Coins are in general much cheaper to keep in circulation than bills, and […]

The lead headline of the Washington Post this morning was “Mexico Vote Tally Gives Free-Trader a Narrow Victory.” Wrong! Felipe Calderon, the candidate who is now ahead in the vote tally to be Mexico’s next president is not a free-trader. He has supported increasing copyright and patent protection and shown no special interest in removing […]

Remember the good old days when newspapers didn’t just unquestioning print what the powerful tell them? (Okay, maybe they never existed.) Anyhow, a Times article this morning reports that Petrobras, the Brazilian energy company, has invested $50 billion in Bolivia. How does the Times know how much Petrobras has invested in Bolivia? Did their reporter […]

Economists always like to talk about the ideal situation of perfectly competitive markets. This is the world in which there are vast numbers of buyers and sellers so that no individual buyer or seller can affect the price. In this world, every producer is a price taker. This means that the price is set by […]

The New York Times editorial page went a bit overboard in its anti-Bush tirade on the budget deficit. The basic point, that the Bush administration deficits are too large, is on the mark. (By the way, they could better make this point using the gross deficit [4.0 percent of GDP], which includes the money borrowed […]