China's Belt and Road Initiative: The Perils of Being a Subprime Global Lender
China's Ministry of Finance recently announced a new "debt sustainability framework" for the Belt and Road Initiative--the plan that China announced in 2013 for supporting construction of overland and overseas transportation infrastructure that would build closer links from China across Asia, and reaching to Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
- 05/08/2019
- 4
Administrative Data Moves Toward Center Stage
For the later decades of the 20th century, the most common source of data for economic studies was government surveys and statisticians. There are household surveys like the Current Population Survey, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the Consumer Expenditure Survey, the National Health Interview Survey, the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and the General Social Survey. There were government workers collecting data on prices at stores as input to measures of inflation like the Consumer Price Index. There were business surveys, like the Economic Census, the Retail Trade Survey, an Annual Survey of Manufactures, the Residential Finance Survey, and others. Branches of government like the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Health Care Financing Administration collect data on specific industries. There's also a Census of Governments to get data on state and local government. The Bureau of Economic Analysis would pull together data from these sources and others to estimate GDP.
- 03/08/2019
- 2
Can Market-Price Housing Construction Help Low-Price Affordability?
If a metropolitan area was to alter its system of permits and rules in a way that enabled a substantial expansion in the quantity of housing being built, would this step help to make housing more affordable for those with lower and moderate income levels?
- 02/08/2019
- 4
India Economic Survey: Challenges Accepted
India's economy doesn't get nearly as much attention as China's. Both economies have a similar involvement in international trade: for example, they both export 19-20% of their GDP. But the US imports is about ten times as much from China as from India, and there is a dimension of geopolitical competition with regard to China that isn't present with India.
- 29/07/2019
- 2
Yes, You Can Patent an Invention that Doesn't Exist
It is odd but true that the US Patent and Trademark Office has in the past been willing to grant patents for inventions that did not actually exist. Janet Freilich and Lisa Larrimore Ouellette discuss this policy in "Science fiction: Fictitious experiments in patents: Prophetic examples may unnecessarily distort understanding," published in Science magazine (June 14, 2019, pp. 1036-1037). For a fuller discussion, see the "Prophetic Patents" working paper by Freilich, available at SSRn (June 25, 2018).
- 26/07/2019
- 5
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