Wrap Up for September 2017

At the level of general equilibrium, today's urban networks continue to drift towards resource use imbalances. For instance, Kevin Bryan posts on urban stickiness: "...owners of land have used political means to capitalize productivity gains into their existing, tax-advantaged asset."

Is pure-ecommerce the endangered model?

Which rural areas are more conducive to mobility?

A heartfelt call from Brink Lindsey for greater economic inclusion.

Making introductory economics more relevant

One would think that the U.S. is more exposed to international trade, than is actually the case.

Lars Svensson:
Tight monetary policy as intended for financial stability, can lead to a weak economy.

Adam Ozimek talks up "Philadelphia momentum" as worthy of a new Amazon headquarters.

Will blockchain technology make central banking obsolete?

"For every $100 increase on taxes at the poverty line, we saw...a quarter of a percentage point decrease in high school completion."

Russ Roberts: "It feels as if we're in a very dangerous moment."

"...median household today is more impacted by higher inflation costs pertaining to necessary non-discretionary expenditures than median household in 1999."

"The excesses of IP law are now a serious obstacle to innovation and economic growth."

"A monetary regime change has occurred that has lowered the growth rate and growth path of nominal demand." http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/2017/09/monetary-regime-change-mission.html

"There has been no recent (real) growth acceleration."

The Fed needs to abandon its floor system and reduce the IOER rate.

"Going off the gold standard did the opposite of what many people think" (FT Alphaville)

It's becoming more difficult to locate and develop ideas through standard organizational means.
http://voxeu.org/article/ideas-aren-t-running-out-they-are-getting-more-expensive-find

The Fed has become anxious to "downsize"

A closer look at the industrial heartland.

A new approach to self driving vehicles would bypass some of the deep learning algorithms which autonomous vehicles now face. "The approach could lead to self driving vehicles that are much better equipped to deal with unfamiliar scenes and complex interactions on the road." This article is an apt reminder that we could also benefit from the exploration of ideas which apply beyond the bounds of "necessary" deep learning (for human capital investment), so as to make time based service product more accessible.

Whatever happened to the "empty nest" syndrome?

"It's notable that the rates expected to prevail over the long run have been systematically reduced."
Clearly the Fed has bought into secular stagnation.

Why are economists stumbling into some of the same macroeconomic mistakes which contributed to the severity of the Great Depression? What's more, economists did not have the same (hard won) monetary guidelines for economic stability back then, which decades of research have since brought to light.

Why we (still) have QUERTY: "It is not that once-off switching costs are that high. It is that on-going switching costs are."

Not every country can compensate skills via the same monetary terms, which is among the reasons I've promoted the internal coordination of skills preferences in a time based framework.

Headline unemployment rates are no longer reliable for labour market slack.