Why Don't People Buy More Annuities?
Among economists, it's sometimes known as the "annuities puzzle": Why don't people buy annuities as frequently as one might expect?
- 18/07/2019
- 3
China's Changing Relationship with the World Economy
China's economy is simultaneously huge in absolute size and lagging far behind the world leaders on a per person basis. According to World Bank data, China's GDP (measuring in current US dollars) is $13.6 trillion, roughly triple the size of Germany or Japan, but still in second place among countries of the world behind the US GDP of $20.4 trillion. However, measured by per capita GDP, the World Bank data shows that China is at $9,770, just one-sixth of the US level of $62,641.
- 14/07/2019
- 6
Is AI Just Recycled Intelligence, Which Needs Economics to Help It Along?
The Harvard Data Science Review has just published its first issue. Many of us in economics are cousins of burgeoning data science field, and will find it of interest. As one example, Harvard provost (and economist) Alan Garber offers a broad-based essay on "Data Science: What the Educated Citizen Needs to Know." Others may be more intrigued by the efforts of Mark Glickman, Jason Brown, and Ryan Song to use a machine learning approach to figure out whether Lennon or McCartney is more likely to have authored certain songs by the Beatles that are officially attributed to both, in "(A) Data in the Life: Authorship Attribution in Lennon-McCartney Songs."
- 11/07/2019
- 2
Raising the Minimum Wage: CBO Weighs in
No proposal to raise the minimum wage can be evaluated without asking "how fast and by how much?" The Congressional Budget Office offers an evaluation of three alternatives in "The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage" (July 2019). CBO considers three proposals: "The options would raise the minimum wage to $15, $12, and $10, respectively, in six steps between January 1, 2020, and January 1, 2025. Under the $15 option, the minimum wage would then be indexed to median hourly wages; under the $12 and $10 options, it would not." (There are some other complexities involving possible subminimum wages for teenage workers, tipped worker, and disables workers, which I won't discuss here.)
- 11/07/2019
- 6
US Multinationals Expand their Foreign-based Research and Development
"For decades, US multinational corporations (MNCs) conducted nearly all their research and development (R&D) within the United States. Their focus on R&D at home helped establish the United States as the unrivaled leader of innovation and technology advances in the world economy. Since the late 1990s, however, the amount of R&D conducted overseas by US MNCs has grown nearly fourfold and its geographic distribution has expanded from a few advanced industrial countries (such as Germany, Japan, and Canada) to many parts of the developing world ..."
- 08/07/2019
- 2
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