The Unassuming Economist

I was unemployed for a year. It was the most difficult time of my life. I was down to my girlfriend’s last dollar. Then, figuring that she was already in graduate school and had no need for them, I started selling off her undergraduate textbooks. Luckily, she had been a double major, so that kept me going for a while. Thirty years later, I can joke about it. But I know that unemployment is no joking matter, and particularly not for the 210 million people across the globe who are unemployed this Labor Day.

Here’s a paper I’ve written on the human cost of unemployment (lost earnings; lower life expectancy; lower earnings and academic achievement for children of the unemployed) and what can be done to get people back to work.

My institution is working with the International Labour Organization to draw attention to the unemployment crisis and to promote discussion of how to cure it. Give us your suggestions at: http://www.osloconference2010.org/

“my view is that the risk of a hard landing is very high for the U.S. economy. I see essentially a recession coming by next year. I give it a very high likelihood. I argue that housing today, like the tech bust in 2000-2001 will have a macro effect; it is not going to be just a sectoral effect. I argue that U.S. consumers are now close to a ‘tipping over’ point given all the vulnerabilities I have discussed. I argue that the Fed easing will occur, so the next move is going to be a cut, but it is not going to prevent a recession. And, finally, I argue that the rest of the world is not going to be able to decouple from the U.S. even if it is not going to experience an outright recession like the United States. So on that cheerful note, I will stop.”

Read the full transcript here.