Clark Center Forum

 

 

The IGM congratulates Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller, who have been awarded the Nobel prize in economics. John Cochrane explains Gene Fama’s contributions to the understanding of asset prices here. As an example of how much the ideas behind this year’s Nobel have influenced economics, see this unanimous response to a question […] 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: If the United States fails to make scheduled interest or principal payments on government debt securities, even as an unintended consequence of political brinksmanship, US families and businesses are likely to suffer severe economic harm.

B: With or without a default, current uncertainty over future taxing and spending policies of the US government is likely to depress private investment and hiring by enough to reduce GDP growth by at least a quarter of a percentage point over the next 12 months. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Experience over the past 30 years shows that for the typical emerging market nation facing rapid capital outflows, spending foreign currency reserves to defend its currency is a better policy for its citizens than not doing so. 

 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Conventional economic reasoning suggests that it would be a good policy to enact the recent Senate bill that would let undergraduate students borrow through the government Stafford program at interest rates equivalent to the primary credit rates offered to banks through the Federal Reserve's discount window. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

An effective way to increase savings rates of employees whose firms have defined contribution plans is to combine automatic enrollment in those plans and periodic automatic increases in their contributions (with the ability to opt out of either). 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Sustained tax and spending policies that boost consumption in ways that reduce the saving rate are likely to lower long-run living standards. 

We would like IGM Forum visitors who had trouble accessing our site last week to know that it is now working smoothly again. A temporary Google blacklist prevented many readers from accessing the site. Google has since rechecked our site, however, and removed the warning. We apologize to those of you who had difficulty. We […]