US Economic Experts Panel

 

 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

New technology for fracking natural gas, by lowering energy costs in the United States, will make US industrial firms more cost competitive and thus significantly stimulate the growth of US merchandise exports. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Cuba’s low per-capita income growth — 1.2 percent per year since 1960 —has more to do with Cuba’s own economic policies than with the U.S. embargo on trade and tourism. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statements:

A) Reducing the minimum retirement age in France from 62 back to age 60, permanently, would reduce long-term French economic growth and substantially raise French debt relative to GDP over time.

B) France’s overall employment is higher today because of the 35 hour work week than it would be without a limit on weekly hours. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statement:

Connecticut should pass its Senate Bill 60, which states that during a “severe weather event emergency, no person within the chain of distribution of consumer goods and services shall sell or offer to sell consumer goods or services for a price that is unconscionably excessive.” 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statement:

The former head of the Transportation Security Administration is correct in arguing that randomizing airport “security procedures encountered by passengers (additional upper-torso pat-downs, a thorough bag search, a swab test of carry-ons, etc.), while not subjecting everyone to the full gamut" would make it "much harder for terrorists to learn how to evade security procedures." 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statement:

Laws that limit the resale of tickets for entertainment and sports events make potential audience members for those events worse off on average. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statement:

Prior to the crisis, the benefits from the funding advantage that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had by virtue of perceived government support mostly went to their shareholders, rather than into substantially lower interest rates on residential mortgages.

 

  

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statements:

A) If public school students had the option of taking the government money (local, state, federal) currently being spent on their own education and turning that money into vouchers that they could use towards covering the costs of any private school or public school of their choice (e.g. charter schools), most would be better off.

B) The main drawback to allowing all public school students to take the government money (local, state, federal) currently being spent on their own education and turning that money into vouchers that they could use towards covering the costs of any private school or public school of their choice (e.g. charter schools) would be that some students would not make an active choice and would be left with much worse peers and a weaker school.