EconTech

“To put it mildly, [converting food crops to biofuels] is foolish; to put it strongly, it is a crime against humanity.”
India considers ban on trading in food futures
By Raphael Minder in Madrid
India is considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, highlighting growing concerns in Asia over the role of hedge funds and financial [...]

I got some complaints (why do people email, isn’t it easier to comment?) that my algebra leaved something to be desired in my previous post on this. I thought the details were rather obvious, and I left H and L as being the real expenditure for a single unit of a high and low quality [...]

Trade and inequality, revisited — Rooftops edition

Another way of investigating the relationship between inequality and trade with poor countries implies that China may actually help the poor, suggests new work from University of Chicago economists Christian Broda and John Romalis.
Instead of focusing purely on what’s produced outside of the country, Broda and Romalis turn their [...]

From VoxEU by Jane Humphries:

Child labour: lessons from the Industrial Revolution
Societies have long sought to eliminate child labour. Yet two hundred years after the first Factories Act and despite a level of prosperity that our forefathers would have deemed unimaginable, there are an estimated 186 million child labourers worldwide –5.7 million in forced labour, 1.8 [...]

I chided Becker and Posner for not giving sources for their posts. Here is some data that backs them up in a more serious manner (HT: Gabriel)(Not sure how I found this), a comment below:
Food prices
How should a well-fed American react when some of the world’s poorest citizens in Haiti and Bangladesh riot over the [...]

I rather like the graph, except for the fact that it doesn’t fit on my monitor in one view.
Bartels bash

We’re having a panel discussion this afternoon about Larry Bartels’s new book, Unequal Democracy. One of Larry’s really striking results is his finding that inequality systematically increases under Republican but not Democratic presidents. I’ve written that [...]

EDIT2: (Will only make sense if you have read the original post). It has been pointed out that my list of incomes fell short, leaving off the top two layers! This was an enormous oversight, and explains why everyone (myself included) was choosing E over D as the superior option. With the fixed data, the [...]

Well, Alex says a lot of what I said. Bartels isn’t so surprising given the previously existing PBC literature, even in other countries. However, the literature does have a number of mechanisms, more than just sticky prices if I remember correctly; if you are interested in scoping it out, read the previous posts for the [...]

Rodrik gives Bartels space to guest blog, and he produces an excellent Q&A formatted response to the questions and criticisms many had of the result we showed last week. Tyler has a few comments up on Bartels’ response:
Larry Bartels responds

Professor Rodrik has kindly invited me to respond to some of the questions and comments generated [...]

Well, I thought that since PK said he doesn’t buy the Bartels graphs because he doesn’t have a sound reason to believe they are true I would mention that. I am posting though, because people are looking very confused at them (comments and trackbacks). I cannot speak to Bartels’ book, but there is already a [...]

Paul Krugman (among others) has been saying that the growth in inequality in America is in large part due to policy differences in various administrations. Obviously and with good reason, Krugman believes that Republican administrations create policies and institutions that favor the rich over the poor while Democrats do a better job of equalizing the [...]

He is kind of late to the ball game on this particular article, but I definitely want to post his thoughts (see below). When Andrew is confused, I usually consider myself lost. This is not necessarily an exception, but I think I see a way out. While there are definitely measurement issues, if, after [...]

Cowen misses the point, later pointed out by others, that consumption measures miss out on lifetime consumption possibilities (also known as wealth). I could forgive him for missing my post, but Thoma brought out others on this. Besides, I would’ve expected Cowen to have ‘just gotten’ this without anyone needing to point it out to [...]

Apparently, if you include real numbers and pretty graphs, your posts will get re-referenced by the bigger blogs. I’m glad he reposted the thoughts though. They are important points about why the analysis of inequality is important and the kinds of information that need to be tracked. Although, to be fair, I didn’t mention wealth [...]

First I saw the op-ed. Then I saw Krugman’s response, which for his purposes was adequate, but I wanted more. Then I started writing. Then Thoma posts, taking care of things for me. I will still comment on a few things that largely mimic Thoma’s thoughts.
Consumption measures are convenient due to the smoothing behavior that [...]