Clark Center Forum

See a discussion of the IGM economic experts panel, examining how much economists agree and disagree on major issues and comparing economists’ views with those of the general public. This video features original research by Gordon Dahl and Roger Gordon from the University of California at San Diego and Paola Sapienza (Kellogg) and Luigi Zingales […] 

 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

The annual indexing of Social Security benefits to increases in the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (the CPI-W) leads to higher benefits than would be required to compensate recipients for genuine cost-of-living increases. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

The Brookings Institution recently described a US carbon tax of $20 per ton, increasing at 4% per year, which would raise an estimated $150 billion per year in federal revenues over the next decade. Given the negative externalities created by carbon dioxide emissions, a federal carbon tax at this rate would involve fewer harmful net distortions to the US economy than a tax increase that generated the same revenue by raising marginal tax rates on labor income across the board. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: Because federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid will continue to grow under current policy beyond the 10-year window of most political budget debates, it is easy for a politician to devise a budget plan that would reduce federal deficits over the next decade without really making the U.S. fiscally sustainable.

B: Comparing two plans that would reduce federal budget deficits by identical amounts in each of the next 10 years, one that did so partly by reducing significantly the long-term growth rate of Medicare and Medicaid spending would do more to make the U.S. budget fiscally sustainable than one that did not lower the growth of these spending programs. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: Taking into account all of the economic consequences — including the incentives of banks to ensure their own liquidity and solvency in the future — the benefits of bailing out U.S. banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs.

B: Because GM and Chrysler were bailed out in 2008-09, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would it have been if Congress and the executive branch had not intervened.

C: Taking into account all of the economic consequences — including effects on corporate managers' incentives and on creditors' expectations of how their claims will be treated in future bankruptcies — the benefits of bailing out GM and Chrysler will end up exceeding the costs. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: The U.S government should make further efforts to shrink the size of the country's largest banks — such as by capping the size of their liabilities or penalizing large banks more heavily through taxes or other means — because the existing regulations do not require the biggest banks to internalize enough of the "too-big-to-fail" risks that they pose.

B: The economic benefits to the U.S. of having a handful of banks with balance sheets greater than $1 trillion are small. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: The federal government would make the average U.S. citizen better off by using policies that directly focus more on increasing manufacturing employment than employment in other sectors.

B: Because firms and inventors do not capture the full returns from research and development, the government would increase the average well-being of Americans (and potentially of others too) by favoring R&D using the tax code. 

by Richard H. Thaler A recurring theme of this year’s presidential campaign is the need to encourage the  formation of new businesses. Republicans in general, and Mitt Romney in particular, have stressed that the best way to stimulate such startups is via low tax rates on high-income earners. Read article> 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: Consider one of two proposals for restraining future Medicare spending, each by the same amount: The method that President Obama enacted in the Affordable Care Act — reducing Medicare-related payments to private insurers and altering the payment system for doctors and hospitals — imposes risks on future Medicare patients because over time the supply of doctors, hospitals and insurers willing to offer them health services may decline in response to restrained payments.

B: Consider the other of two proposals for restraining future Medicare spending, each by the same amount: The method that Governor Romney advocates — giving future seniors a fixed payment for premiums and letting private insurers compete with Medicare — imposes risks on future Medicare patients because competition may not be powerful to enough to offer future seniors the same quality of care that is currently promised without supplementing their premium support.