The Unassuming Economist

I wrote a profile of economist Jeff Sachs that paints a positive picture of his achievements, particularly of his early work in Poland. A new book seems to be much more critical of Sachs, particularly of his recent work in Africa, according to this book review.

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The IMF released a second working paper on the distributional impacts of fiscal consolidation. Like the previous work, this one concludes that “fiscal consolidations are likely to raise inequality through various channels including their effects on unemployment. Spending-based consolidations tend to worsen inequality more significantly, relative to tax-based consolidations.” For more on the IMF’s recent work on fiscal policy, see this presentation at UNICEF.

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Full report

1. Index of global house prices keeps inching up …

2. … with house prices rising in 30 countries out of 51 included in the index

3. Among OECD countries, increases and declines are more evenly balanced

4. In most OECD countries house price-to-rent ratios remain above their historical averages …

5.

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I sound like a broken record (young people will not know how a broken record sounds, let alone what a ‘record’ is) but I gave a talk at the New School for Social Research today on how jobs and growth are linked in many countries across the globe. On a personal note: It was difficult not to ‘feel verklempt’ giving a talk at New School–Robert’s Heilbroner’s “The Wordly’s Philosophers” is probably why I became an economist. Read the full article…

In my presentation at UNICEF today I spoke about the impacts of fiscal consolidation (often called “austerity” in the blogosphere) on long-term unemployment, labor’s share of income, and inequality. 

Here’s a link to the paper.

The announcement

The view from the UNICEF conference room Read the full article…