The Unassuming Economist

From a post by Astrid Haas:

“Africa’s cities are expanding at an unprecedented rate, bringing both challenges and opportunities. In this episode, feminist urban economist Astrid Haas explores three key pillars for inclusive and sustainable growth: governance, planning, and financing. In her view, effective governance requires adaptive institutions, transparent decision-making, and collaboration with civil society and the private sector to ensure cities meet the needs of all citizens. Proactive planning must address infrastructure, housing, and services while recognising the vital role of informal economies. Meanwhile, long-term, strategic financing and smarter municipal spending are essential for equitable development. With two-thirds of Africa’s population expected to live in cities by 2050, this conversation offers practical insights into harnessing urbanisation as a force for sustainable and inclusive growth.”

From a book review by Barry Eichengreen:

“Conventional wisdom, shaped by the economist Thomas Piketty, holds that changes in the concentration of wealth among the richest people in advanced economies followed a U-shaped pattern over the past century: high at the outset, declining as a result of the Great Depression and World War II, and then rising in recent decades, owing to deregulation and the dilution of progressive taxation. Waldenstrom dissents, arguing that a more comprehensive analysis, incorporating data on real estate holdings and pension wealth, tells a different story. The wealth-to-GDP ratio rose without interruption over the past century, while the share of wealth held by those at the top of the income and wealth distribution showed a steady decline. Whereas the elites hold their assets mainly in stocks and bonds, the wealth of the masses lies mainly in their homes and pensions, which were neglected in earlier analyses. The property and pension wealth of the working class has grown faster over the last hundred years than the capital holdings of the elite. Waldenstrom insists that the century has been marked by the democratization of wealth, not spiraling inequality.”

From a paper by Thao Le:

“This study examines the long-term impact of the Great Recession on employment in residential construction, and consequently housing supply. Using regional variation in house price declines during 2006–2009, I find that more severely impacted areas experienced a persistent reduction in construction employment but higher wage growth post-recession, consistent with a downward shift in construction labor supply. This contraction has a causal negative effect on housing production output. A 10% decrease in house prices during the crisis induced a 17%–20% reduction in 2019 construction employment, which in turn led to a 3.0%–5.7% decline in housing construction.”

From a paper by by Óscar Peláez-Herreros:

“We develop the first disaggregation of Okun’s law that quantifies all of the information that is subsumed within its coefficients. The proposed method decomposes the coefficients into the sum of the direct effect of the change in output upon the unemployment rate, plus the indirect effects of the variations in the output per hour worked, the hours worked per employed person, the participation rate, and the size of the working-age population. With quarterly data for the United States from 1948 to 2024, we found that the value of the intercept in Okun’s relation is determined by the increases in working-age population and output per hour of work, along with the decrease in the number of hours worked per employed person, plus the growth of the participation rate until the 1990s and its subsequent decline. For its part, the slope, that is, the value of Okun’s coefficient, depends mainly upon the variations in output per hour of work and the hours per employed person. The other factors were scarcely relevant. Changes in these components caused the Okun’s relation to vary over time, showing a greater sensitivity of the unemployment rate to variations in production since the 2008 crisis.”

From a paper by M.D.J.W. Wijesinghe, Michael P. Cameron, Susan Olivia, and Les Oxley:

“This study aims to provide a comparative analysis of the impacts of three significant pandemics – the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the COVID-19 pandemic – on life expectancy and lifespan inequality. Using cause-eliminated life tables and the Theil Index, we examine changes in life expectancy and lifespan inequality globally. The findings reveal that each pandemic uniquely altered demographic patterns. The 1918 influenza pandemic caused the sharpest immediate reductions in life expectancy, particularly affecting young adults, and led to a significant rise in lifespan inequality. In contrast, the HIV/AIDS epidemic had a more gradual and enduring impact, disproportionately affecting young and middle-aged adults in its early stages and exacerbating health disparities, especially in regions with limited access to antiretroviral therapy. COVID-19 primarily impacted older populations, resulting in smaller reductions in life expectancy compared to the 1918 influenza but with a distinctive decrease in lifespan inequality due to concentrated mortality among older adults. Furthermore, gender specific effects varied across the pandemics. While the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID19 showed relatively uniform impacts across genders, HIV/AIDS revealed pronounced disparities, with women experiencing greater reductions in life expectancy and heightened lifespan inequality. By examining the unique mortality patterns and impacts of these pandemics, this study provides valuable insights to policymakers, emphasizing the need for tailored public health strategies to address inequalities and improve resilience in future global health crises.”