A new Pew study finds Millennial household incomes are higher today than they have been for every other comparable generation, except in the year 2000. Using the Pew data, Ernie Tedeschi finds Millennial household incomes today are comparable to past generations after adjusting for education. But such comparisons assume education is as productivity-enhancing today as it was in the past when America educated fewer people at the margin. Bryan Caplan, for example, ... Read More
Two charts show income inequality hasn’t risen as much as we’ve been led to believe
Two charts show income inequality hasn’t risen as much as we’ve been led to believe. ... Read More
Two More Studies Find Shocking Inability to Replicate Economic Research
The Economist reports on two more studies that find a shocking inability to replicate economic research: A recent examination in the Economic Journal, of almost 7,000 empirical economics studies, found that in half of the areas of research, nearly 90% of those studies were underpowered, i.e., that they used samples too small to judge whether a particular effect was really there. Of the studies that avoided this pitfall, 80% were found to have exaggerated the reported ... Read More
New Study Finds Mortgage-Backed Bonds Issued Pre-Crisis Were Properly Rated
A new study published by the NBER examines the losses suffered by AAA-rated mortgage securities issued in the lead up to the financial crisis. The study finds: “Total cumulated losses [on AAA-rated securities] up to 2013 are under six percent. … The subprime AAA-rated RMBS did particularly well. … [The] returns on AAA RMBS strike us as rather reasonable, and unlikely to have thrown the financial system into the abyss. … Together, these facts call into question the ... Read More
More Evidence Declining Manufacturing Reduced Lower Skilled Employment
The University of Chicago economist Erik Hurst finds: A 10 percentage point decline in the local manufacturing share [no matter the reason] reduced local employment rates by 3.7 percentage points for prime age men and 2.7 percentage points for prime age women. To put the magnitude in perspective, naively extrapolating the local estimates suggests that between one-third and one-half of the decline in employment rates and annual hours for prime age workers during the ... Read More
NYT Graph Shows GOP Tax and Budget Bills Will Have a Relatively Small Impact on the Deficit
A graph in the New York Times shows Republican Tax and Budget bills had a relatively small impact on the budget. ... Read More
