Category Archives: Regulatory Policy

In televised speech on Sunday evening August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon shocked the world with these words: “I am today ordering a freeze on all wages and prices throughout the United States for a period of 90 days,” (see video) … Continue reading →

The book Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner is filled with examples of regulatory capture which the authors uncovered in their investigative reporting of the financial world. Here is my review in the Washington Post. Many of the examples … Continue reading →

What’s the best way forward for American economic policy? On Independence Day it’s natural to look to the country’s founding principles—political freedom and economic freedom—for an answer. 1776 was not only the year when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of … Continue reading →

Some skeptics have complained about the 5% national economic growth target put forth by former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty in his speech this week about his economic plan. They say it can’t be done. But I think the goal makes … Continue reading →

My review of the book Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner (published in yesterday’s Washington Post) gives examples of the many ways in which cozy relations between government and industry lead to reckless policies. Students of economics will … Continue reading →

My colleague Dan Kessler writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that Obamacare creates large disincentives to work. I’ve found the following graph useful for showing students why. (The same type of graph is used in of my economics text Chapter … Continue reading →

Like Paul Krugman, Justin Wolfers also wrote yesterday about my blog post of January 14 on the correlation between investment and unemployment. Wolfers argues that the relationship did not exist in earlier years. He is wrong. His argument is based … Continue reading →

Paul Krugman wrote a post yesterday afternoon and another one last evening on a January 14 post of mine. In the Janaury post I pointed out the strong correlation between total fixed investment as a share of GDP and the … Continue reading →

Today’s TARP hearing at Senate Banking follows a slew of recent reports. The Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) issued its final report yesterday. Economists Simon Johnson, Allan Meltzer, Joe Stiglitz, and Luigi Zingales submitted testimony to COP two weeks ago. The … Continue reading →

The title and the content of Gillian Tett’s short article “Goodbye Moderation, Hello to the Ad Hoc Age,” (FT, Nov 26, reprinted here) describe succinctly the remarkable swing in the pendulum from rules towards discretion in policy in recent years. … Continue reading →