George Shultz Conference Room, Herbert Hoover Memorial Building
George Tavlas, member of the Monetary Policy Council at the Bank of Greece, discussed his recent research on the origins of Milton Friedman’s work on monetary economics and policy rules.
Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional fourth-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece? The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them. What ruins societies is well known: too much consumption and not enough production, a debased currency, and endemic corruption.
Michael O'Hare of the University of California, Berkeley talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the management of art museums. O'Hare suggests a number of changes that would allow museums to be more effective and to justify their non-profit status--lower admission prices, selling part of their substantial unseen inventory to other museums, and broadening the activities of the museum to include educational exhibits on the creation of art and the commercial side of art.
To combat discrimination against women, Bergmann would have the government step up its enforcement of the affirmative action regulations. A hard-liner on this issue, Bergmann proposes: "Each branch of each large firm should have an EEOC audit officer attached to its case, just as it has an IRS agent looking at its tax compliance."
by Charles Blahousvia e21, Economic Policies for the 21st Century
Monday, April 27, 2015
The urgent financing crisis facing Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) is giving rise to suggestions that the DI Trust Fund be merged with Social Security’s larger Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund. These two components of Social Security have been kept separate thus far since their inceptions. The following factors should be borne in mind if any such policy change is considered.
In the 25 years before the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the United States experienced two brief, mild recessions and two strong, long expansions. Globally, incomes grew briskly; inflation abated; and stock markets boomed.This time, however, the return to growth has been much more difficult.
mentioning Larry Diamondvia The Carnegie Endowment For International Peace
Monday, April 20, 2015
Western democratic powers are no longer the dominant external shapers of political transitions around the world. A new global marketplace of political change now exists, in which varied arrays of states, including numerous nondemocracies and non-Western democracies, are influencing transitional trajectories.
The great economist pondered not just markets but the people who use them—and how honorable, happy citizens represent the true wealth of nations. Hoover fellow Russ Roberts explains.
