The intersection of markets and politics: fiscal policy, tax structure, regulatory economics, campaign finance, inequality, monetary policy, and the strategic behavior of economic actors in political environments.
It’s been almost ten years since I’ve written here. The last time I posted, Donald Trump had just clinched the GOP nomination, his Banzhaf power index had hit 1.0, and I was calculating the proportion of his campaign contributions that were unitemized.1 That was June 2016. I stopped writing because the general election demanded a … Read more
Rick Perry’s campaign seems to be a little strapped for cash. But, his super PACs have plenty of money. What gives? Is this just bad management, or possibly a systemic regularity tied to the hot mess that is the race for the GOP presidential nomination? It’s no secret that super PACs have changed the nature of the (early) election … Read more
The rise of mega-donors has been an important storyline in the unfolding drama of the 2016 presidential election (for example, see here). The presence of these donors in the political game (or at least their visibility) is partially the result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. But more interesting is whether the rise of these mega-donors has caused the … Read more
You know where you are? You’re down in the jungle baby, you’re gonna die… In the jungle…welcome to the jungle…. Watch it bring you to your knees, knees… – Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” It’s a jungle out there, and … Read more
Vaccination, both in terms of its social good and the role of government in securing that social good while respecting individual liberty, has been a hot topic lately. In fact, it’s gone viral. (HAHAHAHA. Sorry.) In this short post, I link the debate about vaccination, liberty, and social welfare, with the work of Amartya Sen, a preeminent … Read more
The Greek Tragedy is a “thing.” And lately it has reemerged. The question at the heart of this post is how one should bargain when between a rock and hard place.[0] This point was raised and discussed very well by Henry Farrell in this piece, which was responding to this op-ed in the NY Times by Yanis Varoufakis, the … Read more
In this post on Mischiefs of Faction, Seth Masket discusses the recent debate about whether (super-)rich are overly influential in American politics. I’ve already said a bit about the recent Gilens and Page piece that provides evidence that rich interests might have more pull than those of the average American. In a nutshell, I don’t believe that … Read more
Thinking more about transparency (which I just wrote about), it occurred to me that I neglected two pieces (of many) that are relevant for the point about transparency of decision-making in bodies like the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in which expertise plays an important role in justifying the body’s authority. David Stasavage and Ellen … Read more
Sarah Binder, as usual, provides excellent insights into a difficult political problem in this post discussing the potential political and economic pitfalls of imposing greater transparency on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which essentially directs the Federal Reserve’s active participation in the economy, thereby having the most direct control over short-term interest rates and, accordingly, day-to-day … Read more
For whatever reason, I’m on a “data is complicated kick.” So, this story is one of many today discussing the gender gap in wages in ‘Merica. In a nutshell, President Obama pointed out “that women make, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns.” Critics (most notably the American Enterprise Institute) … Read more