The Economist: Free Exchange
Churn for the better
IN 2000, the Bureau of Labour Statistics introduced the Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey, a data series that added to existing figures on payroll employment and household unemployment with d...
Swinging job markets
EZRA KLEIN wrote yesterday that rougher-than-average economic conditions in swing states could create trouble for Barack Obama in November:In late January, Gallup surveyed the dozen swing states it...
Modest Mario
GREECE was the word on everyone’s mind as Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), sat down to his regular monthly press conference on February 9th. Mr Draghi was quick to say ...
The wisdom of Warren Buffett
VIA Matt Yglesias, an interesting discussion on the value of gold by the world's most famous value investor:Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melde...
Link exchange
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:• Guinness' big contribution to economics research (Wonkblog)• Larry Summers and the uselessness of learning foreign languages (Vox)• Tie U.S. recovery p...
The weekly papers
THIS week's interesting economics research:• Credit ratings and credit risk (Jens Hilscher and Mungo Wilson)• City unplanning (David Schleicher)• The human capital imperative (Nick Schulz)•...
Mario blinks
MOST adolescent boys grow out of playing chicken when they realise the winner of the game is not the bravest, but the one too stupid to be aware of the consequences of continuing to play.During the...
Modern worker, dated benefits
WHAT does your employer owe you? For your work do you deserve (in addition to your wages) job security, excellent health care, and pension in retirement? We have a romantic notion that such benefit...
Sympathy for Ben Bernanke
BINYAMIN APPELBAUM reports today from a meeting of the Senate Budget Committee, which played host to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke:“It seems to me that you care more about unemployment th...
Make labour more expensive?
JARED BERNSTEIN has a post up today entitled, "The minimum wage: time to start working on the next increase". In it, he argues that, you know, it's time to start working on obtaining another increa...