BOHANON & STYRING: Fed may spur investors to take too much risk
Talk is that this ultra-low interest rate environment is the “new normal.” What are the implications of ultra-low rates effectively forever?
Economic Analysis
Articles
BOHANON & STYRING: Don’t tie hands of Hoosier pension fund managers
There is a suggestion that our public pension fund managers dedicate some of the $25 billion in assets to Indiana firms only. It is argued this will spur economic development. This is a Bad Idea.
BOHANON & STYRING: Government pension plans don’t always pay up
There is the real political risk that the governmental unit might not make the necessary pension fund contributions. Mary retires and there is nothing in the kitty except the promise to tax current taxpayers to pay Mary’s pension.
BOHANON & STYRING: Ireland trying to take unfair tax bite out of Apple
If government establishes tax loopholes, can we blame taxpayers for taking advantage of the provisions?
BOHANON & STYRING: Obamacare woes could spur single-payer system
Lost in the season’s political noise pollution is a simple fact: This election likely will decide whether U.S. health care irreversibly slips into a single-payer government-run system.
BOHANON & STYRING: Don’t fall for politicians’ GDP gamesmanship
Economists invented GDP, then left it lying around for politicians to misuse and mangle to justify whatever they want to do!
BOHANON & STYRING: Markets at work in Indy bike share program
The Indy system gives the rider an incentive to treat the bike as his own property. Markets give users and providers incentives to do the right thing.
BOHANON & STYRING: Improving welfare programs not an easy task
Why work or find a better-paying job if it makes you no better off? Pretty much everyone agrees this is lousy, but no one yet has come up with a good answer.
BOHANON & STYRING: Saving for a rainy day is good for economy
A recent survey of U.S. households reveals that 46 percent of all households report their spending is equal to or in excess of their income.
BOHANON & STYRING: Structure of public education reflects bygone era
The current system of K-12 public education traces its roots to the one-room schoolhouse.
BOHANON & STYRING: Brexit mind-set could spark dangerous policies
Such an economically closed welfare state on steroids is a recipe for stagnation, massive underemployment and unemployment and a prescription for expanding the rolls of the welfare state.
BOHANON & STYRING: What Alcoa can teach us about economics
Alcoa and others made tons of money by finding mass-market uses for cheap aluminum, such as tea kettles. Napoleon III flaunted his pricey aluminum. It took capitalism to put it on the household stove.
BOHANON & STYRING: Myriad issues factored into UK’s Brexit vote
British voters understood full well that Brexit would likely make them poorer, but they voted for it, anyway, because they were “buying” other things.
BOHANON & STYRING: If mass transit is so efficient, why the subsidies?
Mass transit in central Indiana once was a thriving private-sector business. Before about 1930, the Indianapolis Traction and Terminal Co. profitably operated electric streetcars throughout the city.
BOHANON & STYRING: Trade deficit not as black and white as it seems
Recent reports indicate that the U.S. trade deficit was $500 billion in 2015. Sounds ominous and cataclysmic, but a look behind the number is revealing.
BOHANON & STYRING: Electricity not a given in some parts of world
the rich of the world should refrain from giving advice to poor nations as to how they get their electricity.
BOHANON & STYRING: Lipstick can’t make this pig of a jobs report look good
In the wake of the May employment report, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez tried to make the best of a report that wasn’t just bad; it was dismal.
BOHANON & STYRING: Turn clock way back to pre-tech economy
A modest proposal: Pass a law outlawing everything patented after 1900. Think of the marvelous effects the law would have on supply and demand almost overnight.
BOHANON & STYRING: Uber is a model for new workplace
The workplace of the future will not be a specific location. It will more and more be wherever people find ways to temporarily interact.
BOHANON & STYRING: EPA’s regulations may have gotten out of hand
The Environmental Protection Agency has since morphed and grown since it was created in 1970. We study bureaucracies. It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that bureaucracies tend to grow.