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A Papal Resignation
Those of the Catholic persuasion (not to mention the just-as-numerous Catholic-watchers) have had an interesting month leading up to Holy Week. A papal resignation - the first in a gazoodle years - followed by the election of a successor from - gasp! - Argentina. more...
An Honest FUBar: Working @ Home
You will have heard that the Bar portion of this week's FUBar has been moved to the Honest Lawyer (start time 5:30, right, Igor?). So, we have a topic that lawyers, HR consultants, economists and Joe and Jane Professional can all get their teeth into: Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's recently leaked memo forbidding all Yahoos (that's really what they're called) from working from home. more...
Optimal Public Broadcasting
The two attached articles (by Jonathan Kay and by Matt Gurney) contain arguments in favour of publicly-funded TV and (particularly) radio in Canada; that is, the CBC in all its glory. One surprising aspect of these articles is their source: columns in the National Post, hardly a bastion of support for state-funded anything. Both argue that the CBC provides a valuable service, although they differ as to how that service might be best funded. more...
Nobody listens to us...
...or so it was claimed during a panel at the recent AEA meetings, according to the 'Free Exchange' article (maybe some of you were at the session?) It presents a list of statements on which there is wide agreement by professional (academic, mostly) economists, and on which the non-economist consensus is almost as broad in the opposite direction. more...
Central Bank Independence, Government Debt and Trillion Dollar Coins
One of the accepted wisdoms of economics before the crisis was that Central Banks should be independent of political influence when deciding on day-to-day policy actions consistent with their long run goals – although these long run goals (typically inflation targets) – would be chosen by political leaders. more...
....so FUBar takes a look at the 21st-century Scrooge; the fat-cat CEO.
Every week one can read some article attacking or defending the trend in pay for CEOs. A less-discussed question seems at least as interesting - what has happened to the nature of their jobs? The conventional answer is that those jobs have become b i g g e r and this explains the rising paycheques. more...
Are Current Policies for the Disadvantaged Working?
The increase in earnings inequality over the past decades has reinforced (renewed?) interest in how to help bring up the incomes – and economic outcomes – of less fortunate members of society. However, less attention seems to have been paid to whether existing policies targeted at improving outcomes are working as intended. more...
Bad Food and Health Outcomes
Most of you have read of the OMA's recent call for taxes on and scary-labelling of bad food, to avoid - according to the OMA president - the overwhelming of our health-care system. more...
The Future of and Innovation in PSE
The recent scatter-shot of pronouncements from the McGuinty government on The Future of Ontario Universities (and CAUT/UWOFA's reliably hysterical reaction to same) is a good opening for a FUBar on a topic dear to our hearts; whither PSE? more...
Can Economic Theory Help Lowewr Hospital Death Rates?
A small, but growing, number of voices are asking whether increased transparency in government and the MUSH (Municipalities, Universities, Schools and Hospitals) sector could help improve efficiency and encourage better outcomes. more...
Hiatus
Joint and separate alternative commitments have put FUBar on hiatus for this week.
However, in the martial spirit of the original FUBAR, we pass along this report. more...
Going it Alone
A demographic trend that is currently the subject of much punditry is an apparently widespread increase in the number of adults who live alone. The data that support this trend is often too aggregated to be certain who exactly makes up this clearly growing set of singletons, but it seems clear that the choice to live alone has been getting more popular. more...
A Capitalism for the People - How to Stop the Rise if Crony Capitalism
The recent economic challenges combined with rising income inequality has led to renewed debate about economic systems, and the role of markets. In A Capitalism for the People, Luigi Zingales puts forward his argument that what is needed is a renewed focus on a meritocratic based market system. more...
Charity and Taxes
The last long weekend of the summer now behind us, we start into our regular FUBar schedule with a 'briefing' from The Economist on Charity and Taxes.
Virtually every developed country treats charitable organizations differently from profit-making organizations in its tax system, and most treat private donations to charities differently from other types of individual expenditures in their personal income tax code. The fundamental question in the attached piece is: what justifies this asymmetric treatment? more...
The Never-Ending Story of...
The arrival of the new grad class signals the resumption of regular FUBar sessions. To start things off this week we look at Health Care Reform....again.....still. more...
Low Interest Rates and Central Bank Policy Options
The ongoing European sovereign debt crisis has led to renewed debate over what central banks can and should do to ameliorate the global economic slowdown. This policy response is complicated by the fact that interest rates in many countries – at least for low-risk securities – are already very low (or even negative). more...
New Deal for Spain and Italy...Will it Work?
Last night the Euro summit went into over time, with Monti and Rajoy staging an "occupy" movement until they received increased access to Euro-zone funds. Will this help to halt the "slow motion bank run" developing in Spain and Italy? more...
How to Control College Debt?
While the recent discussion in Canada on the cost and funding of university education has largely revolved around the "strike" of a minority of Quebec students, questions about the implications of rising student debt have also been the subject of debate in our Southern (or northern if you live in Windsor) neighbour. more...
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Grexit?
The combination of nearly two-thirds of Greeks voting for parties opposed to the recent bailout and a new election campaign (due to the inability of any party to form a working government coalition) seems to have switched world financial markets back into risk-off mode. With the latest polls suggesting the outcome of the June 17th election is very much up in the air, the discussion has now moved to how would a Grexit take place, and what would the consequences be? more...
Reforming Economic Education?
With the end of semester, it seems like a good time to reflect upon the state of "teaching" economics. The New York Times recently collected several different views on reforming the introductory course (and Blinder expands a bit more on the Macro component). more...
Why (Some) Nations Fail
The material for this week picks up on the discussion in a couple of reviews of the recent book Why Nations Fail. As one might guess from the title, this book tackles one of the core questions facing economics -- why do some countries produce so much less output per capita than others? more...
The Ongoing Modern Saga of Greece
The ongoing modern saga of Greece moved closer to the formal declaration of the first sovereign default by a "developed" country since WW II. With the expected exercise of the Collective Action Clauses, it is almost certain that ISDA will declare a "credit event" and trigger the outstanding CDSs. more...
The Cost of Living Longer?
While the recent debate over OAS has largely focused on the implications of the post-baby boom decline in fertility, pensions (and retirement savings) face a potentially much larger challenge: life expectancy. more...
Seven Fixes for Capitalism?
The recent economic slowdown and European challenges has led to recent debate about how to fix "capitalism". Given the discussions at Davos this week, it seems a good time for us to discuss whether "capitalism" needs to be fixed, and if so how. more...
Is There an Epidemic of Academic Dishonesty?
As we embark on a new year of research, it seems fitting to reflect upon recent concerns about the fraud in science. While a WSJ article admits the possibility that we have simply become better at detecting fraud in science, it also highlights a number of cases of deliberate research dishonesty. more...
Valuable Education
Despite all the contrary evidence, it's frequently suggested by those outside universities that a post-secondary degree is no longer worth the price. Today we offer an article making that claim, but for an unexpected reason - too little composition, math, economics, science, etc. being required. more...
Cloak-and-Dagger Auctions
Yesterday the announcement that the US Fed was easing US dollar borrowing sent stock markets soaring and Euro governments selling many bonds. This provides the intro to today's issue: buyers at an auction attempting to go incognito. more...
Black Friday and Angels
Steven Pinker has written a book called The Better Angels of our Nature (from a quote by A. Lincoln) which investigates the history of violence, and concludes that it has been almost universally in decline for a long time. The question is why? He has an explanation, and also purports to explain more specific facts, such as - Why there is more violence in the Southern US than elsewhere (is that true, I wonder?) more...
Economic Education
The Globe recently ran an op-ed on "Economics" and its role in the crisis. While much of the article covers well worn (and, in my view, often misleading) criticisms, more....
Ethics for Economists
The NBER has adopted a limited code of ethics for its members, and the AEA is to consider doing the same - at least for the journals it publishes. Why? Our first article claimes it is a response to ethical lapses that helped precipitate the 2008 financial crisis, and notes that more...
No Reason to be Cocky?
Canadians have gotten accustomed to feeling pretty good about their economy's performance during the recent downturn, and consequently we also think the Canadian federal (provincial, not so much) budget situation is relatively sound. The first article notes that, depending on how you assess that claim, it's not clear that Canada is doing so well. more...
The Italian Question
While Greece continues to meander towards the cliff of default, the full impact of the European sovereign debt crisis arguably hinges on whether Italy is on a path to default (i.e. insolvency) or merely faces a short term liquidity problem due to contagion fears. We offer a set of articles that detail the challenges facing the Italian economy, more...
Recession Policy: The Past and the Future
The economic indicators around the world have not been positive, and the question 'What should Congress/TheFed/Obama do next?' has been much heard in the media. The Economist recently staged an online debate on the issue, and we start with 3 background pieces from that debate.
Looking back now, our colleague Tim Conley (with Bill Dupor of Ohio State) have done an analysis of the effect of the first US stimulus package, more...
BC's HST Revolt
Economists generally praise taxes like the GST for a lot of reasons, many of them highlighted in a post-revolt article by Jack Mintz. BC voters were apparently unimpressed with these arguments, and voted to rescind the provincial government's earlier adoption of the Harmonized Sales Tax. more...
Crime
FUBar returns for the coming Fall term, with a number of readings on a recurring topic - crime. Our first piece is from the WSJ, pointing out that this recession has been accompanied by an unexpected phenomenon - a continuing decrease in the US and Canadian crime rate. This runs counter to past conventional wisdom, and the author considers - and rejects - a series of explanations for this phenomenon. Are people just getting.....'better'?
More recently more...
Greece and the Future of the Eurozone
The Greek (Irish, Portugese, etc.) sovereign debt problem won't go away, but this week we focus on a different aspect of it: what it may mean for the future of the EU. The piece by Charlemagne suggests that however the crisis is resolved, it will necessarily push the EU monetary union to one of two outcomes: more...
Market Ethics?
FUBar returns with discussion of a question that involves basic market analysis, ethics, and the meaning and implications of altruism: What is the best way to organize the Canadian market for human sperm? Three articles with more than three perspectives on an intriguing issue. more...
Inflation Coming?
The papers have been full of commentary warning of impending inflation (none referring to the many warnings of coming deflation of not-so-long ago). We present 4 pieces on the topic, but it could have easily been more. These pieces invariably point to recent rises in very specific sets of prices more...
The US's Jobless Men
FUBar is on a less-regular summer schedule now, but returns today with an article from The Economist on what the article calls one of America’s biggest economic problems: the decline in work among men. The article presents data that more...
Credit Cards
This week's piece is on the NDP's predictably endearing election-platform proposal to impose a ceiling on credit-card interest rates. I expect at least half of our micro principles students could tell their parents why this is probably a bad idea. However, more...
No More Easy Growth
Now and then we like to consider a claim that, however interesting, cannot be tested. We feature a piece from The Economist commenting on a recent book by Tyler Cowen. more...
A License to Shampoo
This week we have a piece from The WSJ more...
This Week - Food
A leading candidate for the 'markets most messed with' are world agricultural markets. The notion of a 'food crisis' has recently featured prominently in the media more...
Missing the Crisis
For the Friday before Reading Week, we feature a return to the Question That Will Not Die: Why did academic (or other) economists not foresee the financial crisis? more...
Romer's Charter City
This week we have a 'light' article from the WSJ about Paul Romer's recent take on a very old idea: utopia. more...
Why Rich People Don't Matter
Well-off parents can relax. That seems to be the lesson of an article from the WSJ. more...
Can Europe Be Saved?
This is the question asked in an article by an economist who doesn't generally get very good press around here - Paul Krugman. more...
Is The Bloom Off the Micro-Credit Rose?
Not so long ago, the micro-credit movement was the darling of the development world. It is in the news again, but in a less favorable light. more...
So You Want a Ph.D., eh?
We start on a new year of FUBars with an article that asserts that there is a looming oversupply of PhDs. more...
Higher Ed, Part Two
What's it all for? One of last week's pieces suggested that Law School has become a bad investment, but one also reads that undergraduate education in general, and the Humanities in particular, is now pointless. more...
Higher Ed, Part One
The state of an industry dear to our hearts has been much written about of late. We join the discussion with two weeks worth of material. more...
Black FUBar
As the US economy hopes for a Black Friday kick-start, this week's article details the difficult situation in one of it's cities - Hamtramck, Michigan. more...
Beware of Greeks Bearing Debts
After a two week hiatus, FUBar returns with a long but highly entertaining piece... more...
Corporate Governance
This week a topic that echoes one from the past summer - what's the best way to organize corporate management? The attached article... more...
The Disappearing US Middle Class
It's become a commonplace observation that Americans below the top of the income distribution have found their real incomes essentially stagnant or worse recently. more...
Social Memory and its Hazards
An appropriate follow-up to last-week's topic of the use of credit-scores in unexpected ways is today's on the 'social memory' of people created by anything that appears on the internet referring to them. more...
Credit Scores and Insurance
A while back my insurance company sent an agent to my house (mostly to annoy me, I think). While reviewing my home insurance policy, he mentioned that I was getting a discount due to my high credit score. more...
Paying Bankers Better (But Not More...)
This week we take up an issue that’s been around since the 2008 Financial Crisis, and won’t go away – paying bankers (broadly interpreted) so as to get the incentives right more...
Why Do Scandinavians Work?
September is a month for serious work around here, so this week we ask: Why do Scandinavians work? more...
Political Polarization
Attached is an article arguing that the US primary system produces politically polarized candidates in general elections. more...
European Government Default
After fading into the background during the late summer, the prospect of a sovereign default by a European government has resurfaced. more...
Too Rich to Live
As summer fades away, we have a light topic for the Bar: some perverse - maybe macabre - incentives flowing from the politics of the USA's 'death tax'. more...
Mismatch in Labour Market: Some Firms Struggle to Hire Despite High Unemployment
The U.S. labour market - especially the rapid rise in unemployment - has been a hot topic lately. more...
Friday the 13th
Given the date, something (un)lucky seems appropriate, and faculty generally hope that dabblers in today's topic - plagiarism - are just that. more...
Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages Are the Rich
Today's article (see: Rich Default) discusses what seems to me a particularly ironic example of unintended consequences. more...
Rough Justice in America
Lock 'em up! The US is (in)famous for many things; it is, in particular, the world leader in incarceration. more...
