Gross National Happiness and Macro Indicators in Bhutan
A lot of people have heard, one way or another, that the country of Bhutan decided back in the early 1970s to pursue Gross National Happiness. The King at that time is supposed to have said: “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product.” But in practical terms, what does that actually mean? Sriram Balasubramanian and Paul Cashin describe "Gross National Happiness and Macroeconomic Indicators in the Kingdom of Bhutan" in IMF Working Paper WP/19/15 (January 2019). They write:
- 26/02/2019
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Universal Basic Income: Preliminary Results from the Finnish Experiment
The big selling points for a universal basic income are simplicity and work incentives. The simplicity arises because with a universal basic income, there are no qualifications to satisfy or forms to fill out. People just receive it, regardless of factors like income levels or whether they have a job. There are not bureaucratic costs of determining eligibility, and no stigma of applying for such benefits or in receiving them.
- 24/02/2019
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China's High Savings Rate
China has a remarkably high savings rate in a typical year--and sometimes its higher than that. In fact, the main reason for China's high trade surpluses is that with such a high savings rate, China doesn't consume either a lot of imports or domestically produced goods. A reason that China can invest so much, year after year, is that the investment is financed by high savings rates. A standard recommendation for China's economy for at least the last 15 years or so is to "rebalance" toward being an economy driven by domestic consumption, not by investment.
- 23/02/2019
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SOFR Replaces LIBOR
Those with medium-term memories will remember that a scandal erupted around LIBOR in 2010. But you may not know that as a result, LIBOR is probably going to disappear in the next few years to be replaced by SOFR. Since several hundred trillion dollars of financial contracts will be different as a result, it's useful to have at least some sense of what the change means.
- 21/02/2019
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Some Proposals for Improving Work, Wages, and Skills for Americans
The Aspen Institute Economic Study Group has published a collection of 12 papers on the theme Expanding Economic Opportunity for More Americans Bipartisan Policies to Increase Work, Wages, and Skills, edited by Melissa S. Kearney and Amy Ganz (February 2019). I'll list the complete Table of Contents for the volume below. Here, I'll just focus on four of the proposals that struck me as especially thought-provoking: caught.
- 20/02/2019
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