Economics Topics

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Taxes

Red and Blue States Are Growing Further Apart on Income Tax By Richard Rubin and Jeanne Whalen, The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2026
Google Guys Say Bye to California By Ryan Mac, Theodore Schleifer and Heather Knight, The New York Times, Jan. 9, 2026
Tax the Rich, Like Me By Mitt Romney, The New York Times, Dec. 19, 2025
‘Tax the Rich,’ French Protesters Cry, as the Wealthy Push Back on Paying More By Liz Alderman, The New York Times, September 18, 2025
‘People are so angry’: how wealth tax became a battleground in Norway’s election By Juliette Garside, The Guardian, September 7, 2025
[Optimal Taxation] By Rohit Lamba, x.com, July 11, 2025
Correcting the Top 10 Tax Myths By Jessica Riedl, Manhattan Institute, December 12th, 2024
It’s Time to Tax the Billionaires By Gabriel Zucman, The New York Times, May 3, 2024
Surprise! The federal government made a website that doesn’t stink. By Shira Ovide, The Washington Post, March 29, 2024
The IRS has all our tax data. Why doesn’t its new website use it? By Julie Zauzmer Weil, The Washington Post, February 4, 2024
How inheritance data secretly explains U.S. inequality By Andrew Van Dam, The Washington Post, November 10, 2023
Debunking 5 Republican arguments against the global minimum tax By Natasha Sarin and Kimberly Clausing, The Washington Post, August 7, 2023
Top Federal Individual Income Tax Rate 1913-2023 Tax Policy Center, July 31, 2023
Biden’s Better Plan to Tax the Rich By Jason Furman, The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2022
This is Tax Evasion, Plain and Simple By Gabriel Zucman and Gus Wezerek, The New York Times, July 7, 2021
Biden won a global tax rate. Now Americans wonder if it was a good deal. By Julie Zauzmer Weil, The Washington Post, July 5, 2023
Wealth and Property Taxation in the United States by Stefanie Stantcheva, Twitter thread, June 30, 2023
Lobbyists Begin Chipping Away at Biden’s $80 Billion I.R.S. Overhaul By Alan Rappeport, The New York Times, March 30, 2023
'Why we need a wealth tax' By Martin Sandbu, Financial Times, YouTube, September 6, 2022
Good Riddance, TurboTax. Americans Need a Real ‘Free File’ Program. By Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times, July 19, 2021
Opinion: Americans spend hours and hours preparing their taxes. We shouldn’t have to. by Helaine Olen, The Washington Post, May 15, 2021
Translating Tax Jargon Ahead of Tax Day: An Illustrated Guide to Common Terms By Randy Yeip, James Benedict, and Andrew Levinson, The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2021
Column: 23,000 households reported income over $10 million last year. The IRS audited seven By Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2020
Say Yes to Progressive Taxation By The Editorial Board, The New York Times, October 28, 2020
Companies Save Billions in Taxes by Shifting Assets Around Globe By Richard Rubin, The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2020
The Liberal Economists Behind the Wealth Tax Debate By Jim Tankersley and Ben Casselman, The New York Times, Feb. 21, 2020
How to Tax Our Way Back to Justice By Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, The New York Times, October 13, 2019

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Common Resources

27 Million Fewer Car Trips: Life After a Year of Congestion Pricing By Emily Badger, Larry Buchanan, Stefanos Chen, Asmaa Elkeurti and Winnie Hu, The New York Times, January 5, 2026
Who Poisoned Long Island's Water Supply? Thirteen and Newsday, YouTube, December 19, 2025
The Colorado River is on the verge of crisis. No one has a solution. By Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post, December 22, 2025
Humans Are Altering the Seas. Here’s What the Future Ocean Might Look Like. By Delger Erdenesanaa; Graphics by Mira Rojanasakul; Photographs and Video by Madeline Gray, The New York Times, Sept. 4, 2025
Here Is Everything That Has Changed Since Congestion Pricing Started in New York By Emily Badger, Stefanos Chen, Asmaa Elkeurti, Winnie Hu, Francesca Paris and Ethan Singer, The New York Times, May 11, 2025. Fewer cars. Faster travel. Less honking. And some questions we still can’t answer.
We Have to Stop Underwriting People Who Move to Climate Danger Zones By Parinitha Sastry and Ishita Sen, The New York Times, January 16, 2025
Many Climate Policies Struggle to Cut Emissions, Study Finds By Austyn Gaffney, The New York Times, August 22, 2024
Can Fees on Polluting Cars Clean the Air? London Has New Evidence. By Somini Sengupta, The New York Times, July 26, 2024
Depletion of major groundwater source threatens Great Plains farming PBS NewsHour, June 24, 2024 [Tragedy of the Commons and the Ogallala Aquifer.]
The Paradox Holding Back the Clean Energy Revolution By Ed Conway, The New York Times, February 22, 2024
Strawberry Case Study: What If Farmers Had to Pay for Water? By Coral Davenport, The New York Times, December 28, 2023 ["With aquifers nationwide in dangerous decline, one part of California has tried essentially taxing groundwater. New research shows it’s working."]
The Struggle to Conserve Threatened Forests in Haiti By Ekpali Saint, Earth.org, Dec 30, 2022 [Has a stunning picture of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border.]
As Groundwater Dwindles, Powerful Players Block Change By Christopher Flavelle and Mira Rojanasakul, The New York Times, November 24, 2023
In a U.S. First, a Commercial Plant Starts Pulling Carbon From the Air By Brad Plumer, The New York Times, November 9, 2023 [Government subsides and carbon credits at work.]
When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics By Christopher Ketcham, The Intercept, October 29, 2023
Whales, From Above By Ellie Duke with Photographs and Video by Sutton Lynch, The New York Times, Sept. 17, 2023 [The photographer Sutton Lynch is documenting a dramatic turning point off the coast of Long Island — a resurgence of sea life after decades of depletion.]
Air Quality Life Index
America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow By Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi and Eli Murray, The New York Times, Aug. 28, 2023 [Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed.]

Five Takeaways From Our Investigation Into America’s Groundwater Crisis By Mira Rojanasakul and Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2023
Uncharted Waters By David Leonhardt, The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2023 [The threat to groundwater is a classic tragedy of the commons.]

The richest Americans account for 40 percent of U.S. climate emissions By Kasha Patel, The Washington Post, August 17, 2023
A Climate Warning from the Cradle of Civilization By Alissa J. Rubin with photographs by Bryan Denton, The New York Times, July 29, 2023
Climate Shocks Are Making Parts of America Uninsurable. It Just Got Worse. By Christopher Flavelle, Jill Cowan and Ivan Penn, The New York Times, May 31, 2023
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows By Patrick Greenfield, The Guardian, January 18, 2023
Once an Open Sewer, New York Harbor Now Teems With Life. Thank the Clean Water Act. By John Waldman, December 30, 2022
The gold-mining city that is destroying a sacred Venezuelan mountain By Samantha Schmidt, Ana Vanessa Herrero and Janice Kai Chen, TheWashington Post, December 6, 2022
Herman Daly, professor who introduced ecology to economics, dies at 84 By Emily Langer, The Washington Post, November 4, 2022
The Amazon, undone: A failure of enforcement By Story by Terrence McCoy and Photos by Rafael Vilela, The Washington Post, Aug. 30, 2022
Carbon Offsets By John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, YouTube, August 22, 2022
This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End By David Marchese, The New York Times, July 17, 2022
How Demand for Twigs Is Bringing Down a Rainforest By Dionne Searcey and Ashley Gilbertson, The New York Times, July 14, 2022
Raft by Raft, a Rainforest Loses Its Trees By Dionne Searcey and Ashley Gilbertson, The New York Times, June 14, 2022
Devouring the rainforest By Terrence McCoy and Julia Ledur, The Washington Post, April 29, 2022
How do carbon markets work? The Economist YouTube Channel, October 1, 2021
China Opened a National Carbon Market. Here’s Why It Matters. By Chris Buckley, The New York Times, July 16, 2021
New Carbon Market Pays Southern Pine-Growers Not to Cut By Ryan Dezember, The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2021
‘There’s a red flag here’: how an ethanol plant is dangerously polluting a US village By Carey Gillam, The Guardian, 10 Jan 2021
‘The Fish Rots From the Head’: How a Salmon Crisis Stoked Russian Protests By Anton Troianovski with Photographs by Sergey Ponomarev, The New York Times, Aug. 15, 2020

Saturday, August 1, 2020

Finance

The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way. By Oren Cass, The New York Times, February 6, 2026
What Is a Money Market Account? By Miranda Marquit, The Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2025
Now on the College Course Menu: Personal Finance By Ann Carrns, The New York Times, January 10, 2025
Massachusetts, Money, and Inflation-Linked Notes By Daniel Dematos, The Tontine Coffee House, August 19, 2024
Growth Stocks. Value Stocks. What Do Those Labels Mean? By Jeff Sommer, The New York Times, May 10, 2024
Wall St. Loves to Guess, but Nobody Knows What the Market Will Do in 2024 By Jeff Sommer, The New York Times, December 23, 2023 ["So-called stock forecasts don’t deserve the name, our columnist says. Wall Street’s track record is horrendous."]
How Does the World’s Largest Hedge Fund Really Make Its Money? By Rob Copeland, The New York Times, November 1, 2023
A ‘Shadow’ Lending Market in the U.S., Funded by Insurance Premiums By Maureen Farrell, The New York Times, October 4, 2023
Harry Markowitz (1927-2023): Bringing Finance Into Economics By Timothy Taylor, Conversable Economist, June 26, 2023
Harry Markowitz, Nobel-Winning Pioneer of Modern Portfolio Theory, Dies at 95 By Robert D. Hershey Jr., The New York Times, June 25, 2023
Risky Bet on Crypto and a Run on Deposits Tank Signature Bank By Matthew Goldstein and Emily Flitter, The New York Times, March 12, 2023 [Regulators said keeping open the 24-year-old institution, which held deposits from law firms and real estate companies, could threaten the financial system’s stability.]
The Crypto Collapse and the End of the Magical Thinking That Infected Capitalism By Mihir A. Desai, The New York Times, January 16, 2023
Inflation bonds are earning eye-popping rates: 9.62 percent. By Ann Carrns, The New York Times, May 4, 2022
Nobel-winning stock market theory used to help save coral reefs By Karen McVeigh, The Guardian, 28 Nov 2021
Inflation Bonds Are Getting a Big Rate Bump By Ann Carrns, The Nw York Times, Nov. 4, 2021
Only 35% Pass Wall St.’s Toughest Test. How Much Does That Matter? By Lananh Nguyen, The New York Times, September 30, 2021
Stock, Bond and Real Estate Prices Are All Uncomfortably High By Robert J. Shiller, The New York Times, October 1, 2021
Is a home warranty a waste or a smart buy? By Anthony Giorgianni and Kevin Brasler, The Washington Post, September 21, 2021
The Safe, High-Return Trade Hiding in Plain Sight By Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2021
What happened with GameStop? By Alexis Goldstein, Markets Weekly, 28 Jan 2021
We Buy A Junk Bond Planet Money (podcast), September 9, 2020
The Murderer, The Boy King, And The Invention Of Modern Finance Planet Money (podcast), September 4, 2020
Mutual Fund Winners Don’t Stay Ahead for Long By Jeff Sommer, The New York Times, July 31, 2020
Course Materials

empirical asset pricing By Ralph Koijen and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2021

YouTube

Emil Verner on Banking Crises, Credit Booms, and the Rise of Populism Mercatus Center, YouTube, Nov. 18, 2024
Alex Tabarrok on DEFI Decentralized Finance - Crypto and Blockchain Macmillan Learning, YouTube, February 23, 2022
In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Myron S. Scholes by Steve Foerster, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, December 28, 2018
In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Jeremy Siegel by Andrew Lo and Steve Foerster, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, November 2, 2018
In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Robert C. Merton by Andrew Lo, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, June 15, 2017
In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Robert J. Shiller by Andrew Lo, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, June 9, 2017
In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Harry M. Markowitz by Steve Foerster, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, May 23, 2017
In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Eugene F. Fama by Andrew Lo, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, December 15, 2016
In Pursuit of the Perfect Porfolio: William F. Sharpe by Andrew Lo, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, YouTube channel, May 26, 2016
The Secret History of the Credit Card Frontline PBS YouTube Channel, November 23, 2004

Retirement

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
Retirement on Pause: High Costs Push Older Americans Back to Work By AARP Press Team, February 05, 2026
The typical U.S. worker has $955 saved for retirement National Institute on Retirement Security, Feb 6, 2026 [Report]
How America withstands financial hardships By Jeffrey W. Clark, Vanguard, March 2026
4 Ways to Enjoy Your Savings in Retirement Without Going Broke By Lisa Rabasca Roepe, The New York Times, Feb. 28, 2026
Social Security Disability, a Protection for Some Workers, Is at a Crossroads By Mark Miller, The New York Times, December 13, 2025
You Saved and Saved for Retirement. Now You Need a Plan to Cash Out. By Brian J. O'Connor, The New York Times, July 12, 2025
Retirees, Get Ready to Need Long-Term Care. Here’s What to Know. By Mark Miller, The New York Times, May 24, 2025
The 401(k) Has Reached a Tipping Point in Its Takeover of American Retirement By Anne Tergesen, The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2025
Going Solo: How to Plan for Retirement When You’re on Your Own By Diane Harris, The New York Times, September 21, 2024
You’re Retired. What’s the Best Way to Withdraw Your Savings? By Brian J. O'Connor, The New York Times, December 28, 2024
Why Do So Many Americans Pass Up Bigger Social Security Checks? By Peter Coy, The New York Times, November 11, 2024
A look at the Social Security funding gap and ways to fix it PBS NewsHour, YouTube, August 12, 2024
How Much of My Paycheck Should I Save? By Tanza Loudenback, Buy Side from WSJ, June 21, 2024
Was the 401(k) a Mistake? By Michael Steinberger, The New York Times Magazine, May 8, 2024
What to Do When Your 401(k) Leaves Something to Be Desired By Mark Miller, The New York Times, April 19, 2024
How Much Do I Really Need to Retire? By Tanza Loudenback, Buy Side from WSJ, December 21, 2023
How Much Should I Have in Savings? By Steve Garmhausen, The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2023
How to Enjoy Retirement Without Going Broke By Peter Coy, The New York Times, August 27, 2021
How IRAs Work And Why They Are More Popular Than 401(k)s CNBC YouTube Channel, August 12, 2021
How 401(k) Plans Work And Why They Killed Pensions CNBC YouTube Channel, March 24, 2021
The Perfect Retirement Investment Nobody Wants By Peter Coy, The New York Times, February 17, 2023
For More Certainty in Your Retirement Portfolio, Consider Annuities By Tara Siegel Bernard, The New York Times, February 7, 2023

Friday, May 22, 2020

Education

Mom, Dad, I Want to Be a Welder By Callie Holtermann, The New York Times, July 14, 2026
For less than $100, I clicked my way toward a college degree in days By Todd Wallack, The Washington Post, June 24, 2026
What Does It All Mean? Once a Year, French Students Try to Explain. By Catherine Porter, The New York Times, June 19, 2026
Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a ‘Generation-Long Decline’ By Claire Cain Miller, Francesca Paris and Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times, May 13, 2026
U.S. Schools Face a Crisis as the Number of Children Drops By Sarah Mervosh, Francesca Paris and Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, May 8, 2026
Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators By Todd Wallack, The Washington Post, April 19, 2026
You Can’t Game Your Way to a Real Education By Molly Worthen, The New York Times, April 19, 2026
Hampshire College Will Close Amid Student Enrollment Declines By Mark Arsenault, The New York Times, April 14, 2026
Some of the most popular graduate degrees don’t pay off financially, study finds By Todd Wallack, The Washington Post, March 31, 2026

Do Graduate Degrees Pay Off? By Joseph G. Altonji and Zhengren Zhu, PEER Center, March 2026

A.I. Is Coming to Class. These Professors Want to Ease Your Worries. By Sharon Otterman, The New York Times, January 17, 2026
College Board Cancels Tool for Finding Low-Income High Achievers By Stephanie Saul and Dana Goldstein, The New York Times, September 4, 2025
The cost of college: Is it worth it, what’s the payoff, and does it buy more than money? Justin Wolfers YouTube, August 29, 2025
For $65,000 a year, a teacher-less AI private school comes to Virginia By Karina Elwood, The Washington Post, August 26, 2025
Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis. By Clay Shirky, The New York Times, Aug. 26, 2025
Here’s What Happened When I Made My College Students Put Away Their Phones By Ezekiel J. Emanuel, The New York Times, Aug. 21, 2025
Social media opens a window to traditional trades for young workers By Taylor Telford, The Washington Post, August 13, 2025
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Directs National Center for Education Statistics to Collect Universities’ Data on Race Discrimination in Admissions U.S. Department of Education, August 7, 2025

Data source?

Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification By Aatish Bhatia, Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz, The New York Times, July 24, 2023
100 Students in a School Meant for 1,000: Inside Chicago’s Refusal to Deal With Its Nearly Empty Schools by Mila Koumpilova, Chalkbeat, and Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica, June 13, 2025
To fix our public schools, follow ... D.C.? Yes, you heard that right. By Eric A. Hanushek and Margaret E. Raymond, The Washington Post, June 9, 2025
Has America Given Up on Children’s Learning? By Dana Goldstein, The New York Times, May 10, 2025
Affirmative Action Is Gone. Can Class-Based Admissions Replace It? By James Traub, The New York Times, March 24, 2025 [Review of "Class Matters" by Richard D. Kahlenberg]
Why fewer young men are choosing to pursue college degrees PBS NewsHour, YouTube, June 25, 2024
Ignore the sticker price: How have college prices really changed? By Phillip Levine, Brookings, April 12, 2024

That Giant College ‘Sticker’ Price Isn’t What Most Students Pay By Ann Carrns, The New York Times, April 12, 2024

Why Is Paying for College So Complicated? By Ron Lieber, The New York Times, January 18, 2024
How Do I Pay For College? Your questions, answered by experts. By The New York Times, January 12, 2024
New SAT Data Highlights the Deep Inequality at the Heart of American Education By Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, October 23, 2023
Homeschooling Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube, October 4, 2023
What Most American Schools Do Wrong By Adam Grant, The New York Times, October 22, 2023
Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault Is That? By Paul Tough, The New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2023
When Financial Independence Isn’t Always the Goal By Sara Murphy, The New York Times, September 2, 2023 [Many Iranian Americans say their families place a high premium on education — sometimes at the expense of early financial independence — potentially complicating their financial futures.]
Opinion Why colleges hide the truth about tuition (it isn’t as high as advertised) By George F. Will, The Washington Post, August 30, 2023
The Truth about College Costs By Dan Currell, National Affairs, Number 56, Summer 2023
Let’s Stop Pretending College Degrees Don’t Matter By Ben Wildavsky, The New York Times, August 21, 2023
Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification By Aatish Bhatiya, Claire Cain Miller, and Josh Katz, The New York Times, July 24, 2023
American universities have an incentive to seem extortionate The Economist, July 23, 2023
Trump’s Justices Didn’t Doom Affirmative Action. Demography Did. By Christopher Caldwell, The New York Times, June 8, 2023
College is remade as tech majors surge and humanities dwindle By Nick Anderson, The Washington Post, May 20, 2023
You Learn the Value of a College Degree When You Live Without One By Christopher Zara, The New York Times, April 26, 2023
Opinion Bottom line, a college degree is worth the cost and then some By Christopher L. Eisgruber, The Washington Post, April 26, 2023
The College Data You Probably Can’t Find, but Definitely Need By Ron Lieber, The New York Times, April 15, 2023
Affirmative action in college admissions doesn’t work — but it could By Roland G. Fryer, Jr., The Washington Post, October 30, 2022
Stanford Law Introduces Income-Share Agreements By Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, September 19, 2022
Princeton to cover all college bills for families making up to $100,000 By Nick Anderson, The Washington Post, September 8, 2022
The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors by Andrew Van Dam, The Washington Post, September 2, 2022
What Is School For? The New York Times, September 1, 2022 [Collection of opinion articles]
Want to fix the federal student loan system? Kick out scammy schools. By Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post, August 29, 2022
Why I Changed My Mind on Student Debt Forgiveness By Susan Dynarski, The New York Times, August 30, 2022
Why Student Debt Relief Isn’t Elitist By Paul Krugman, The New York Times, August 29, 2022
Biden’s Student Loan Plan Sets Off Fierce Debate Among Economists By Jim Tankersley, The New York Times, Aug. 30, 2022
Student debt: Is a degree worth the financial strain? By David Pogue, CBS Sunday Morning, YouTube, May 15, 2022
I Am Not Proof of the American Dream By Tara Westover, The New York Times, February 2, 2022

“Educated” Author: College Is Unaffordable and Unimaginable Amanpour and Company, YouTube, February 9, 2022

Drop in college enrollment threatens to cause long-term economic, social consequences By Jon Marcus, The Washington Post, January 22, 2022
More Women Than Men Are Going to College. That May Change the Economy. By Justin Wolfers, The New York Times, November 23, 2021
The Fight Over Tenure Is Not Really About Tenure By Molly Worthen, The New York Times, September 20, 2021
Should More Student Loan Borrowers Use Income-Driven Repayment Plans? by Sarah Gunn, Nicholas Haltom and Urvi Neelakantan, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Brief, June 2021, No. 21-20
More colleges and universities outsource services to for-profit companies By Jon Marcus, The Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2021
More info is available about which college majors pay off, but students aren’t using it By Jon Marcus, The Washington Post, Dec. 25, 2020
More people with bachelor’s degrees go back to school to learn skilled trades By Jon Marcus, The Washington Post, November 20, 2020
College Choices and Success: Four Questions for an Economist By Kristie Engemann, Open Vault Blog, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, November 18, 2020
For Millions Deep in Student Loan Debt, Bankruptcy Is No Easy Fix By Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard, The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2020
The Only Way to Save Higher Education Is to Make It Free By Claire Bond Potter, The New York Times, June 5, 2020
Don’t Kid Yourself: Online Lectures Are Here to Stay By Robert H. Frank, The New York Times, June 5, 2020
The End of College as We Knew It? By Frank Bruni, The New York Times, June 4, 2020
Risky Strategy by Many Private Colleges Leaves Them Exposed By Kevin Carey, The New York Times, May 28, 2020
Remember the MOOCs? After Near-Death, They’re Booming By Steve Lohr, The New York Times, May 26, 2020
Income Share Agreements Looking Up by Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution (blog), May 22, 2020
Joshua Angrist: On charter schools, the elite illusion, and the "Stones Age" of econometrics Interview by David A. Price, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Econ Focus, First Quarter 2020
Is Going to College Worth it?: VICE Podcast 031 Vice, YouTube, February 5, 2014

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Public Goods

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/climate/epa-human-life-value.html?smid=url-share By Maxine Joselow, The New York Times, January 21, 2026
E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution By Maxine Joselow, The New York Times, January 12, 2026
The Dream Was Universal Access to Knowledge. The Result Was a Fiasco. By David Streitfeld, The New York Times, August 13, 2023
Putting a Dollar Value on Life? Governments Already Do By Austin Frakt, The New York Times, May 11, 2020
How Government Agencies Determine The Dollar Value Of Human Life (audio report) By Sarah Gonzalez, NPR, April 23, 2020

Globalization

Whirlpool Abandoned Its Global Ambitions. Now It’s in a World of Hurt. By John Keilman, The Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2026
The hottest AI models in Silicon Valley face a powerful source of competition By Miriam Waldvogel, The Washington Post, July 15, 2026
Get Ready, America: Here Come China’s Food and Drink Chains By Daisuke Wakabayashi and Joy Dong, The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2025
China Bought $12.6 Billion in U.S. Soybeans Last Year. Now, It’s $0. By Kevin Draper, The New York Times, September 25, 2025 [Retaliatory tariffs]
A Move to the U.S. to Avoid Tariffs? There Are Trade-Offs. By Melissa Eddy, The New York Times, September 3, 2025
The Real Reason Americans Worry About Trade By Peter S. Goodman, The New York Times, August 25, 2025
Policy or Cudgel? A Trade Economist on Trump’s Hardball Tariffs. By Roger Lowenstein, The New York Times, July 11, 2025
Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car By Michael Dunne, The New York Times, July 8, 2025
Tariffs Make the World Poorer and More Perilous By Eswar Prasad, The New York Times, June 5, 2025
The Real Story of the ‘China Shock’ The jobs harm was largely local and temporary, while overall jobs and consumer welfare increased. By James J. Heckman and Hanming Fang, The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2025
How Tariffs Work By June Kim, The New York Times, February 12, 2025
Manufacturing Towns Hit by the ‘China Shock’ Bounced Back. The Workers Didn’t. By Justin Lahart, The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2025
How Trump’s Tariffs on China Changed U.S. Trade, in Charts By Inti Pacheco, The Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2024
Sanctions crushed Syria’s elite. So they built a zombie economy fueled by drugs. By Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet, The Washington Post, July 25, 2024
How four U.S. presidents unleashed economic warfare across the globe By Jeff Stein and Federica Cocco, The Washington Post, July 25, 2024
Buy American? Easier Said Than Done. By Jenna Sauers, The New York Times, Jan. 9, 2024 [Review of “Making It in America,” by Rachel Slade.]
Biden’s course for U.S. on trade breaks with Clinton and Obama By David J. Lynch, The Washington Post, August 27, 2023
Why It Seems Everything We Knew About the Global Economy Is No Longer True By Patricia Cohen, The New York Times, June 18, 2023
Opinion What women’s underwear tells us about our trade system By Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post, February 9, 2023
Will remote work make it easier to ship white-collar jobs overseas? By Andrew Van Dam, The Washington Post, August 26, 2022
‘What have we done?’: six years on, UK counts the cost of Brexit By Toby Helm, Robin McKie, James Tapper & Phillip Inman, The Observer, Sat 25 Jun 2022
Economic Weapons of Mass Destruction By Raghuram G. Rajan, Project Syndicate, Mar 17, 2022 [On economic sanctions]
Tweet by Douglas A. Irwin, Twitter, December 23, 2021
The Persistence of the China Shock By David Autor, Ratioforskning YouTube Channel, November 3, 2021
U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods didn’t bring companies back to the U.S., new research finds
By Jiakun Jack Zhang and Samantha A. Vortherms, The Washington Post, September 22, 2021
The British retailer Marks & Spencer blames Brexit as it closes French stores. By Eshe Nelson, The New York Times, Sept. 16, 2021 [Nice illustration of border effects.]
An anniversary for free traders The Economist, June 24, 2021
Scottish fish prices ‘collapsing’ by as much as 80% due to Brexit bureaucracy, industry warns By Ben Chapman, The Independent, January 12, 2021
U.S. trade policies have disproportionately harmed Black and Latino workers, not just the White working class Trump courted, researchers find By Tracy Jan, The Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2021
The W.T.O. Is Having a Midlife Crisis By Farah Stockman, The New York Times, December 17, 2020
The economic consequences of Sir Robert Peel: A quantitative assessment of the repeal of the Corn Laws By Douglas Irwin and Maksym Chepeliev, VoxEU, 09 December 2020
W.T.O. Says American Tariffs on China Broke Global Trade Rules By Ana Swanson, The New York Times, Sept. 15, 2020
When Globalization Really Began By Christiane Bird, The New York Times, April 14, 2020 [Review of "THE YEAR 1000: When Explorers Connected the World — and Globalization Began" By Valerie Hansen]
Data

New Measures of Prices for Global Trade Commissioner's Corner (blog), Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 15, 2018. Data: https://www.bls.gov/mxp/home.htm

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Technology and R&D

From Cow-Milking Robots to Weed-Zapping Lasers, Farmers Are Embracing A.I. By Coralie Kraft, The New York Times Magazine, June 5, 2026
What Are A.I. Agents Actually Doing? By Cade Metz, The New York Times, June 4, 2026
There’s Something Else We Should Be Worrying About By Ezra Klein, The New York Times, May 31, 2026
Blind Waymo Users Revel in the Joy of Riding Alone By Sonia A. Rao, The New York Times, May 24, 2026
Graduates Boo Commencement Speech About A.I. By Gabriella Gershenson, The New York Times, May 14, 2026
How Do You Measure an A.I. Boom? By Kevin Roose, The New York Times, April 17, 2026
How A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8 Billion Company By Erin Griffith, The New York Times, April 2, 2026
Economists Once Dismissed the A.I. Job Threat, but Not Anymore By Ben Casselman, The New York Times, April 3, 2026
A.I. Agents: They’re Fun. They’re Useful. But Don’t Give Them the Credit Card. By Cade Metz, The New York Times, March 19, 2026
Trapped! Inside a Self-Driving Car During an Anti-Robot Attack. By Erin Griffith, The New York Times, March 17, 2026
Where Is A.I. Taking Us? Eight Leading Thinkers Share Their Visions. The New York Times, February 2, 2026
Can A.I. Generate New Ideas? By Cade Metz, The New York Times, January 14, 2026
In China, A.I. Is Finding Deadly Tumors That Doctors Might Miss By Vivian Wang, The New York Times, January 2, 2026
A Primer on the Economics of AI from Justin Wolfers Justin Wolfers, YouTube, November 4, 2025
Thoughts by a non-economist on AI and economics By Boaz Barak, Windows on Theory (blog), November 4, 2025
A Novel Approach to Patents By Douglas Holtz-Eakin, American Action Forum, July 30, 2025
Your A.I. Radiologist Will Not Be With You Soon By Steve Lohr, The New York Times, May 14, 2025
The Quest for A.I. ‘Scientific Superintelligence’ By Steve Lohr, The New York Times, March 10, 2025
Everybody Is Talking About A.I. What the Heck Is It, Anyway? By Stephen Marche, The New York Times, January 31, 2024 ["Five best books about artificial intelligence."]
The Billionaires Spending a Fortune to Lure Scientists Away From Universities By Rob Copeland, January 12, 2024
Large language models, explained with a minimum of math and jargon By Timothy B. Lee and San Trott, Understanding A.I. (blog), July 27, 2023
Big Tech Is Bad. Big A.I. Will Be Worse. By Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, The New York Times, June 9, 2023
How Much Regulation is Too Much? MIT IDE, April 12, 2023 [New research measures how French government regulation stymies innovation among smaller firms]
What’s the Future for A.I.? By Cade Metz, The New York Times, March 31, 2023 [Where we’re heading tomorrow, next year and beyond.]
How Should I Use A.I. Chatbots Like ChatGPT? By Kevin Roose, The New York Times, March 30, 2023 [Large language models are already good at a wide variety of tasks.]
What Makes A.I. Chatbots Go Wrong? By Cade Metz, The New York Times, March 29, 2023 [The curious case of the hallucinating software.]
How Does ChatGPT Really Work? By Kevin Roose, The New York Times, March 28, 2023 [Learning how a “large language model” operates.]
How to Become an Expert on A.I. By Kevin Roose and Cade Metz, The New York Times, April 4, 2023. [Part 1 of a five-part series on A.I.]
How could AI impact developing economies? By Daniel Björkegren, March 27, 2023
ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like. By David Rotman, MIT Technology Review, March 25, 2023
What Occupations Will ChatGPT Most Likely Impact? TAP, March 24, 2023
The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes By Steven Johnson, The New York Times Magazine, March 17, 2023
Fox News hosts, execs privately doubted 2020 conspiracy claims shared on air By Jeremy Barr and Rachel Weiner, The Washington Post, February 17, 2023
‘I want to destroy whatever I want’: Bing’s AI chatbot unsettles US reporter By Jonathan Yerushalmy, The Guardian, February 17, 2023
A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled By Kevin Roose, The New York Times, February 16, 2023
How Smart Are the Robots Getting? By Cade Metz, The New York Times, January 20, 2023
The Long Road to Driverless Trucks By Cade Metz, The New York Times, October 14, 2022
A.I. Is Mastering Language. Should We Trust What It Says? By Steven Johnson, The New York Times Magazine, April 16, 2022
Bill Gates: How to Develop Life-Saving Drugs Much Faster By Bill Gates, The New York Times, April 15, 2022
Save America’s Patent System By The Editorial Board, The New York Times, April 16, 2022
The Latecomer's Guide to Crypto By Kevin Roose, The New York Times, March 19, 2022
Economists Pin More Blame on Tech for Rising Inequality By Steve Lohr, The New York Times, January 12, 2022
Juul Wanted to Disrupt Big Tobacco. Instead It Created an Epidemic of Addiction. By Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New York Times, May 25, 2021. [Review of "THE DEVIL’S PLAYBOOK: Big Tobacco, Juul, and the Addiction of a New Generation" By Lauren Etter]
Debts, Deficits, and Patent Monopolies By Dean Baker, CEPR Blog, May 27, 2021
The Robots Are Coming for Phil in Accounting By Kevin Roose, The New York Times, March 6, 2021
The Ingredients For Innovation Farnam Street (blog), August 2020
An exploration of ‘How Innovation Works’ By Jon Gertner, The Washington Post, June 18, 2020 [Review of “How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom” by Matt Ridley.]
The Difference Between Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents By Alexander Webb, The New York Times, April 16, 2020