Posts Tagged ‘Elliot eisenberg’
House Work
Part of the reason employment growth is so weak is that despite sizable increases in residential construction spending, increases in construction employment have been MIA. From April 2012 to April 2013, residential construction put-in-place increased from $249 billion to $295 billion, an 18% rise. However, during the same period, the number of residential building employees…
Read MoreWhere’s Daddy?
In 2011, 4.1 million women gave birth, 36% of which were unmarried, up from 31% in 2005. 57% of women without a high-school degree, 49% of women with a high-school diploma, 40% of women with some college and 8.8% of women with a bachelor’s who gave birth were unmarried. States with the highest percentages of…
Read MoreDangerous Debt
The take-away message from the Reinhart-Rogoff error is that research mistakes happen, that higher debt levels are correlated with slower GDP growth, and that there is no debt threshold, 90% or otherwise, above which growth dramatically collapses. Rather, as the debt/GDP ratio rises, growth rates systematically decline. The key unanswered question of the research is…
Read MoreEconomic Gamble
In a hopeful sign for the economy, gross gaming revenues rose 4.8% in 2012 to $37.34 billion, and are now (not accounting for inflation or Native American casinos) just $180 million below the all-time high of $37.52 billion set in 2007. NV led the pack with $10.70 billion spent, NJ was next at $3.32 billion,…
Read MorePool Anyone?
The Friday File: In August, houses with pools sell for about 0.2% more than homes without pools while in May, June and July pools add just 0.1%, half as much. Conversely, from November through March, swimming pools reduce house prices by about 0.15% while in April, September and October pools have no impact. Even at…
Read MorePoor Peso
Running low on foreign reserves, Argentina is making it increasingly difficult for Argentines to purchase US dollars, which has widened the gap between the official exchange-rate and the black-market rate. And that has caused Argentines to make offshore purchases with credit-cards at the cheaper official rate. In response, the government has raised taxes on offshore…
Read MoreSize Matters
The Brown-Vitter proposal to force banks with assets over $500 billion to hold roughly double the capital of smaller banks, is overly simplistic. Big banks should be forced to hold extra capital to eliminate any “Too Big to Fail” funding advantage. Furthermore, all banks should hold more capital the bigger and more interconnected they are…
Read MoreRenovation Run
Despite residential construction being on the mend, its contribution to GDP is tiny. During Q1 2013, the value of new single family construction was just $157 billion, or 0.98% of GDP, while residential improvements contributed $161 billion or 1%. This was the 18th straight quarter where spending on improvements exceeded new single family construction! All…
Read MoreTough Taxes
The Friday File: Every percentage point increase in state income taxes faced by free-agent baseball players raises their salary by $22,500/year. By contrast, the same tax increase reduces slightly the average skill level of free-agent basketball player signings. It’s because baseball teams have no real salary cap, while basketball teams are very constrained. Thus, basketball…
Read MoreWant a Job?
Since 3/12 the unemployment rate has fallen 0.6%, and the labor-force participation rate (LFPR) has fallen by 0.5%. If by 3/14 the LFPR falls another 0.5%, it would take only 107,000 new jobs/month to get the unemployment rate down another 0.6%. But if by 3/14 the LFPR returns to where it was on 3/12, it…
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