The Unassuming Economist

The IMF’s latest report on the U.S. says that: “After a prolonged deleveraging, the housing sector is showing healthy growth.”

Below is an extract from the Jerusalem Post:

“In 1924, the late English economist John Maynard Keynes deliberated on what makes a great economist: “The master-economist … must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future.”

Keynes was eulogizing a colleague economist who passed 17 years before Israeli economist Assaf Razin was born in 1941. However, if you ask colleagues and students, Keynes’ words could have been describing the ideal this 2017 EMET Prize winner for social sciences aspires to achieve.

Razin studied and shared ideas about globalization before many modern commentators on the subject even heard of the word, according to Prakash Loungani, an adviser at the International Monetary Fund. Migration and its impact on welfare states, economic policies that would have to shift in a world that is smaller and more accessible – “All the issues we are dealing with now, he was writing about all of it 20 or 30 years ago,” said Loungani.

Razin’s accomplishments are most surprising, considering his upbringing in Kibbutz Shamir in the Upper Galilee. He was born to a family of modest means with Marxist ideals. The professor describes his life as one of extremes – from the kibbutz to Tel Aviv University; from Israel to different parts of the world; and from his childhood in the nursery bed of socialism to the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, the cradle of intellectual capitalism, from where he received his Ph.D. in economics.”

Despite some rather dramatic personal events, including the death of his son in 1996 at the age of 30, Razin’s academic and professional achievements are truly outstanding, said Lars E.O. Svensson, a professor in the Stockholm School of Economics.

“Assaf has an excellent standing in the international community of scholars,” said Svensson. “He is a most welcome visitor to universities, research institutes and international organizations all over the world, and he is a high appreciated participant in international conferences.”

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ASSAF RAZIN. (photo credit:Courtesy)

On cross-country:

• Why Jimmy Carter Believes Housing Is a Basic Human Right – Citylab
• When the (Empty) Apartment Next Door Is Owned by an Oligarch – New York Times
• ¿Por qué las ciudades se vuelven incosteables? – El Economista
• The impact of oil shocks on the housing market: Evidence from Canada and U.S – Journal of Economics and Business

On the US:

• Having Shed Young Workers, the Construction Industry Needs Change – BuildZoom
• The Toughest Places to Build: Behind the Scenes of a Wall Street Journal Analysis – BuildZoom
• Inventory Myth Busting: Why is Home Inventory So Low? – Trulia
• Housing Prices: Highs and Lows – Conversable Economist
• We’re Finally Building More Small Homes, but Construction Remains at Historically Low Levels – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Housing Shortage: Where is the Undersupply of New Construction Worst? – Apartment List
• Echoes of Rising Tuition in Students’ Borrowing, Educational Attainment, and Homeownership in Post-Recession America – Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• A promising new coalition looks to rewrite the politics of urban housing – Vox
• Boosting Taxes for Boasting about Houses: Status Concerns in the Housing Market – TU Wien
• Study: Tax subsidies like the mortgage interest deduction have ‘zero effect on homeownership’ – American Enterprise Institute
• These four trends in rental housing have big implications for the growing affordable housing crisis – Urban Institute

On other countries:

•  [Canada] Housing Market Assessment — CMHC

A new article by Alasdair Macleod quoted my research: “Loungani was recently interviewed for a BBC programme, updating his original paper. In that interview, he claimed that over three decades, of the 150 recessions recorded only two had been forecast, implying that since the turn of the century no recessions had been forecast at all.ii The failure rate has increased to 100%, not decreased, as might be expected from economic models that are updated in the light of experience.”

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IMF’s latest report on the Euro Area says that: “Credit and house price growth are moderate, but pockets of risks suggest that countries need greater flexibility in activating macroprudential tools in a timely manner. Although credit growth has picked up, credit gaps are negative in many countries. At the same time, overvalued residential and commercial real estate prices in a few countries suggest a potential need for the nimble application of macroprudential instruments (…). To ensure timely actions, the authorities should reduce the onerous process of notifications for increasing banks’ risks weights on mortgages to curb housing-related macroprudential risks, which currently could go all the way to the European Council.”