Economic Policy
Big picture coverage of macroeconomics, political economy, and governments' roles in world commerce.
- Does Bernanke Really Deserve a Second Term? Desmond Lachman 07/02/2009
- The Federal Reserve chairman’s tenure has been checkered at best. There must be other candidates who could be expected to do a better job.
- Despite the Doubters, It’s Still Top Dollar Desmond Lachman 06/27/2009
- There’s much chatter that the Chinese renminbi will eventually replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s preeminent international reserve currency, but this supposed inevitability is highly questionable.
- Offsets Chipping Away at the Cap Ted Gayer 06/23/2009
- The House of Representatives recently received a painful lesson in the pitfalls of carbon offsets. Despite this, it has decided to ignore this important lesson in its cap-and-trade bill.
- Bernanke’s Quantitative Easing Challenge Desmond Lachman 06/20/2009
- The focus of the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting will be on how recent financial market developments, mainly in reaction to a perceived overly expansionary longer-run budget policy, are putting the incipient recovery at risk.
- A Healthcare Free Lunch? Tim Worstall 06/19/2009
- Will the government taking over responsibility for healthcare reduce the total cost of it?
- The Next Regulatory Fight: Avoiding Another AIG Emily Renwick 06/16/2009
- As Congress weighs the benefits of a new federal insurance regulator, it is worthwhile to pause and consider the weaknesses of the current system, and whether a new regime would effectively fill that gap.
- The Problem with the Biggest Tax Break in America Arnold Kling 06/15/2009
- How can we cut back on employer-provided health insurance and at the same time reduce the number of households that are uninsured? We must reconceive the very concept of health insurance.
- Bernanke in a Box Desmond Lachman 06/09/2009
- The market is showing its growing unease about the Obama budget.
- Banking on Delusion Philip I. Levy 06/06/2009
- The government has just pumped into GM more than five times what the company was worth to its owners over the last decade. Will U.S. taxpayers ever get their money back?
- Shooting the Messenger: CBO in the Crosshairs Andrew G. Biggs 06/04/2009
- The official scorekeeper for health reform legislation in Congress has stated that the overhaul proposed by the administration could increase costs. What to do? Shoot the messenger.