Tyler Cowen's Blog, page 139
August 3, 2014
The separate door
In an age of widening inequality, in a city with ever-more expensive rent, the “poor door” has become an outsized symbol.
Technically, it doesn’t exist yet. But earlier this month, New York City approved plans for a high-rise apartment in Manhattan that will include it: a separate entrance for the property’s subsidized tenants. The luxury condo will otherwise have more than 150 market-rate apartments. But its 55 affordable units, offered by the developer Extell through the city’s inclusionary housing program, will be separated with different amenities, different views of the city and, yes, a different front door.
A housing complex in DC soon may be trying the same.
Sentences about poverty
The number of distressed neighborhoods in the suburbs grew by nearly 140 percent, compared to 50 percent in urban areas.
That is since 2000, from Danielle Kurtzleben.
Assorted links
1. NFL players height and weight over time.
2. Why are start-ups slowing down?
3. Some material goods can make you happy.
4. On the Saudi-Israel “alliance.”
5. Mankiw on a reader on Sowell on sincerity, a very good point.
6. Lawyers without law school.
7. Really bad food markets in everything, potato chip edition.
August 2, 2014
Monopsony and its drawbacks
The Bully Fire, which has burned more than 12,600 acres in Shasta County, is nearly contained. In the two weeks since it ignited, about 2,000 firefighters have battled the blaze. Nearly half of them — 900 — are inmates with the California Department of Corrections. These “low-level offenders” making just $2 a day are a crucial component in how the state battles wildfires.
Yet there is some extra compensation:
Once they’re in the program they never spend a night in a prison facility.
Nonetheless:
A few other men say they might try firefighting when they’re released, but most, citing the hot, hard work and long hours, say, “No way.”
There is more here, via Michael Makowsky.
Ghana isn’t doing as well as many people think
Ghana will turn to the International Monetary Fund for help after the west African country’s currency plunged roughly 40 per cent this year against the dollar, making the cedi the worst performing currency in the world in 2014.
Nearly three years after the start of oil production, which was meant to further strengthen the country’s fiscal position, the public purse is looking empty. Ghana is battling a double-digit fiscal deficit after a 75 per cent increase in public salaries over two years. Inflation is rising rapidly as the cedi plunges.
Ghana ran a fiscal deficit equal to 10.1 per cent of gross domestic product in 2013. The government has promised to lower the deficit to 8.5 per cent this year, but observers believe it would struggled to reduce it below 10 per cent.
The full FT story is here, here are ungated sources, here is one account from Ghana.
U.S. IT investment as a share of gdp
The pointer is from Matt Yglesias.
Addendum: Claudia Sahm refers us to this chart of declining IT prices. It also can be argued that IT spending moved into other, more general business categories.
What I’ve been reading
1. Walter Lippmann: Public Economist, by Craufurd D. Goodwin. An excellent study of the man who was probably the most influential economics columnist and commentator of his era, even though he is not usually remembered as such.
2. The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh. A popular book on how a lot of future jobs will be very short-term and how to deal with this world on a practical basis.
3. Jonathan Rottenberg, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic. More intelligent and thoughtful than most other books in this area, this treatment stresses the (partial) cognitive advantages of having a tendency toward depression.
4. David Eimer, The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China. A look at China’s outermost regions and their ethnic minorities, an excellent perspective on The Middle Kingdom.
5. Steven Conn, Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century. Good background for understanding today’s blue-red divide and the origins of progressivism.
6. Lawrence A. Cunningham, Berkshire Beyond Buffet: The Enduring Value of Values. Maybe the title doesn’t sound promising, but this is a substantive take on what actually goes on out there.
Arrived in my pile are:
6. Paul Know, editor, Atlas of Cities.
7. Dan DiSalvo, Government Against Itself: Public Union Power and Its Consequences.
8. Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel: A Novel.
August 1, 2014
Russia fact of the day
Shares in Gazprom, a company that made $32bn in net income last year, trade at only 2.6 times forward earnings.
That is from FTAlphaville.
Assorted links
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