BOHANON & STYRING: College endowments are not public property
One particularly bad idea just floated by members of the House of Representatives is to raid the endowments of rich colleges.
Economic Analysis
Articles
KIM: Purdue invests in students with Back a Boiler–ISA Fund
Through the fund, managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, students pay back a set percentage of their salary over a term of nine years or less.
BOHANON & STYRING: Your annual checkup is really just an oil change
Yes, most health insurance plans protect against large insurable events. The kicker is that most health insurance plans also cover the equivalent of oil changes.
BOHANON & STYRING: Corporations are about the masses, not elites
The corporate form of organization is an innovation that made modern life possible.
BOHANON & STYRING: With collective decisions, no one is fully satisfied
When we vote for someone, we vote for a whole bundle of positions, predilections and philosophies.
BOHANON & STYRING: Why not use auctions to allocate H1-B visas?
Sometimes, prices are intentionally not used to allocate resources. The H1-B visa program is an example. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use prices to ration these visas.
BOHANON & STYRING: Monthly jobs reports have many moving parts
Each month, markets and media await the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report. And each month, the headline misses 90 percent of what’s really happening on the jobs front.
BOHANON & STYRING: The rich will pick up tab for fixing Social Security
Social Security will inevitably be changed from an insurance program to a simple welfare program designed to transfer wealth from high earners to low earners in retirement.
BOHANON & STYRING: Impacts of trade deficits poorly understood
It’s natural to think it’s bad to buy more from foreigners than they buy from us.
BOHANON & STYRING: Playing politics with tariffs an unwise course
Tariffs provoke retaliation. Pretty soon you’re in a trade war. The objective of protecting American jobs winds up costing many times more jobs than the ones you set out to protect.
BOHANON & STYRING: Temptation to cheat dooms price-fixing schemes
The Saudis et al. tried to reinvigorate the OPEC cartel, which has been nearly destroyed by new U.S. hydraulic fracturing technology. It didn’t work.
BOHANON & STYRING: Venezuela offers lessons in dangers of inflation
inflation is a sustained and persistent increase in the general level of prices. In the United States, we don’t have much inflation right now, but, historically, governments have conjured up inflation as a way to raise revenue and repudiate debts.
BOHANON & STYRING: Obama budget takes on sports-venue subsidies
Obama’s 2017 budget has one provision that makes us want to send him a belated Valentine! He asks Congress to eliminate a federal tax exemption for interest payments on local bonds issued to build professional sports venues.
BOHANON & STYRING: Look past class warfare to the real numbers
It’s an election year, so politicians talk a lot about taxes. Most candidates tell the middle class and poor they pay way too much in federal income taxes.
BOHANON & STYRING: Fed’s easing policies are coming home to roost
Nowhere is it written that it’s the Fed’s job to provide cheap money for the federal government to spend, but that’s precisely the hole the Fed has dug for itself.
BOHANON & STYRING: Market ultimately keeps gas prices in check
As long as a price-fixing scheme cannot be enforced by law or mafia contract, we consumers have little to fear.
BOHANON & STYRING: Ethanol has lost its glow, but subsidies live on
Ethanol, the wonder fuel, has turned out to be a wonder flop. But corn ethanol has powerful interests protecting the subsidy, such as corn farmers and ethanol companies. Those who bear the costs of the ethanol subsidy are the widely dispersed and disorganized members of the general public.
IMF downgrades outlook for world economy again
Citing weakness in the developing world, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday that the world economy will grow 3.4 percent, down from an October forecast of 3.6 percent.
BOHANON & STYRING: Quest for growth faces demographic headwinds
A low birth rate coupled with extended life spans for old folks is a recipe for an economic squeeze.
BOHANON & STYRING: Economics matter in immigration choices
Immigration stories have cultural, social and political elements to be sure, but economics almost always plays a central role.