Some links on trade and immigration

New regulations on remittances (WSJ)
What would really bring a dollar dive? (Chinn) (Answer: "a failure to raise the debt ceiling in a timely fashion")
Free trade agreements and democracy (Vox: Xuepeng Liu)
More on demographics in China and inter-temporal comparative advantage, sorta. (People Move)

Some links

There is no great stagnation. (Free Exchange)
Rule #1: Buy low sell high. Rule #2: You can't make up a per-unit loss with quantity. Don't forget rule #1.
Optimal punishment for bribery: giving a bribe is legal, soliciting is illegal. (Economist)
Optimal bribery for kids. (Boston Globe)
Rent vs. Buy (Economix)
Selling Government Land (MR)

Petition of the Candlemakers

From WSJ, via TC at MR:

Candles are one industry in which U.S. producers dominate their home market. The National Candle Association estimates the U.S. market is about $2 billion, with imports accounting for 20% or less of that. Imports have been low since 2004, when “the anti-dumping duties came into play,” said the association’s president, Frederic Contino. That’s when duties for Chinese-made candles entering the U.S. more than doubled to the current 108.3%.

Some international econ links

Trump's trade policy. WTF? More here.
TC on Stolper-Samuelson. I'd like to point out that S-S doesn't directly imply Factor Price Equalization. S-S just identifies the winners and losers; FPE is a stronger result that requires additional assumptions.
Closed borders, by one of my dissertation mentors.

Interesting

From Economix:

Very few countries default because they can’t afford to pay their debts, either to their own citizens or to foreigners. Defaults occur when the political process in a country determines that, for whatever reason, the government cannot raise sufficient revenue.

Interesting. It mentions the debt-to-revenue ratio as a critical factor in determining the sustainability (read: servicability) of our debt. Even with the tax-cut crazy republicans dictating the agenda, we're not at a critical level on that statistic.

The Long-Run Value of the Bin-Laden Raid

Link here.

A lot of stuff from VOX on International

Financial Globalization
Services Trade
Study Abroad and Labor Mobility
Hidden Barriers
Trade Slumps: Is this time different? Yes.
The New Elhanan Helpman Book

Links on Trade and Trade Balances

From Vox:
  Real Exchange Rates and "Dutch Disease";
  Intellectual Property Rights, FDI and the WTO.

Some Links on International Economics and other Random Stuff.

In factor endowments models of trade, we usually think of the quantity of land as fixed. Dubai tried to disprove this, but their man-made islands are now sinking. Nature seems to have a better way of proving me wrong. (NYTimes)
An interesting take on the trade deficit with China, which, by the way fits with a simple inter-temporal comparative advantage story. (Economist)
Female Migration and Development. (PeopleMove; also here)

Economists behaving badly. (Ezra Klein)
"Page Numbers are for Wussies." (Cheep Talk)

One Possible Take on the NPR Hoo-Hah

One take is that this is the gotcha moment where the right finally proved the liberal bias of NPR. Maybe.

But, as conservative Heather MacDonald points out:

I fail to see the relevance of an NPR employee’s off-air criticism of
the Tea Party to the question of NPR’s federal funding or its liberal
bias. Conservatives can easily prove liberal bias by analyzing the
content of the programming.

I have no doubt that there is a significant over-representation of
democrats and "liberals" among the employees  who work and report for
NPR, but that in and of itself does not imply that they are anything other than
professional and fair in their coverage of the news. In fact, on average, although there is liberal bias in the media overall, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting seems to be among the most scrupulously centrist news organizations out there, according to a study by Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo (2005, Quarterly Journal of Economics):

Our results show a strong liberal bias: all of the news outlets we
examine, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times,
received scores to the left of the average member of Congress.
Consistent with claims made by conservative critics, CBS Evening News
and the New York Times received scores far to the left of center. The
most centrist media outlets were PBS NewsHour, CNN’s Newsnight, and
ABC’s Good Morning America; among print outlets, USA Today was closest
to the center. [Emphasis added.]

Furthermore,

Conservatives frequently list NPR as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet. However, by our estimate the outlet hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet.

PBS NewsHour is a CPB production. So, (1) according to Ms. MacDonald personal political views of the executives shouldn't matter; (2) also according to Ms. MacDonald bias should be proven through an analysis of the content; (3) statistical analysis of the content shows little or no bias by several major public broadcasting programs. What does this mean of Mr. O'Keefe's video? One conclusion might be that it only weakens the case against NPR and CPB as "left-wing liberal media."  In fact, given the widespread (and probably correct) notion that public broadcasting mostly employs bleeding-heart liberal hippies, the fact that NPR's and PBS's content is demonstrably unbiased relative to other media (not to mention lack of influence by corporate advertisers) only strengthens the case for its continued public support.

Some Links on International Econ, and other stuff.

Trade, integration, and political reform in MENA (VOX)
Really? Do we have to block everything? How bout you pass the pro-market stuff, Republicans? (NYTimes)
More people latching onto Uwe Reinhardt's flawed characterization of international economists (World Trade Law)
JLR for now, Tata for later? (Economist)
Second-generation immigrants - problem? (Economist)
Finally, some music. A few seconds from every chart-topper since 1956 (ECC)

Crock Pot Pork Butt

Excellent crock pot pulled pork tonight:

15 oz can tomato sauce
15 oz can pineapple, crushed
3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 Tbsp dried minced onion
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
salt & pepper to taste
4-5 pound boneless Boston Butt pork shoulder, halved
15 oz can mandarin oranges
Combine 1st 8 ingredients. Add meat. Cook 10 hours on low. Add oranges in last hour. Pull apart with fork.

The liquid makes a nice carolina-esque vinegar-based barbecue sauce (if it weren't for the tomato sauce). The meat falls apart. This is a variation on a recipe intended for chicken, but the combination of flavors seemed perfect for pork shoulder. Plus, cooking chicken breasts all day in a crock pot usually means dried out chicken, so I went with a bigger hunk of meat.

Some Links, Including the Benefits of Holding "it" In

We make better long-run decisions on a full bladder. I can't wait to share this with my 75-minute classes. (APS)
Wage gaps and education. Some of this seems contrary to the recent evidence of stagnating education wage premia. (Krugman and Cowen - separately, of course!)
Given these structural changes, structural change is not welfare-neutral, even in the long run. (Rodrik)
Even (especially?) informed voters just really don't have beliefs about politics and policy that are consistent with reality. (Caplan)
Is controlled immigration better for welfare programs? This seems to assume a lot about the effectiveness of the controls.  (VOX)

Wage Struggles of Men (and a Link on Helping the Homeless)

Wage struggles of men? (Economix) Forgive me for being cynical, but looking at earnings per capita instead of earnings per worker and concluding that there is some sort of tide against men in the labor market seems hypocritical and sexist. A paper on the gender gap scarcely gets published unless it looks at female earnings on a per worker and per hour basis. This, of course is because many say there is "voluntary" selection into (and more importantly out of) the work force. How concerned should we be if more men are beginning to voluntarily select out of the work force (or begin working fewer hours), as more of their wives work full time? For thirty years women were told that their hours-worked choices were "voluntary" and the bar for showing evidence of a culture of discrimination was set almost impossibly high. Now that things are changing, why are we so quick to feel sorry for the men?

Direct transfers are often better than paternalistic in-kind ones (Jason Kottke)

An Interesting Take

I hadn't seen much relation of the Wisconsin protests with international trade, but here's an interesting point from the international economic law and policy blog.

The right to collective bargaining is one of the so-called "core labor rights" that the U.S. uses for GSP conditionality, and the 2002 TPA required labor rights to be a negotiating objective in U.S. PTAs.  ...  Article 6 of the US-Jordan FTA, for example, ... requires that each party "strive" to ensure that its laws incorporate freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.

Will this make us hypocrites? I guess not if you consider the fact that we probably already are, but it won't help.

Links on Arguing for Free Trade and Other Stuff

A simplistic argument for free trade by NG Mankiw; a simplistic response from Uwe Reinhardt; a better response here and here.
The other stuff. Can't resist a few links on the union stuff.
Matt Yglesias on Swedish labor unions:

Swedish labor unions could use their dominant labor market position to increase workers’ compensation by making Swedish firms less profitable than non-Swedish ones, but that would be bad for everyone. What you get instead is a kind of Mirror Universe version of the Chamber of Commerce, a politically powerful institution interested in maximizing the income growth of the median Swede rather than the median Swedish CEO.

This only works because a really high percentage of workers in Nordic countries is unionized.
Menzie Chinn on the fiscal non-problems in Wisconsin.
Finally, Chinn on, well, let's say buyers' remorse:

"I am going to make an effort to speak for myself, and every member of the Wisconsin State Patrol when I say this ... I specifically regret the endorsement of the Wisconsin Trooper's Association for Gov. Scott Walker. I regret the governor's decision to 'endorse' the troopers and inspectors of the Wisconsin State Patrol."

That's Chinn quoting Tracy Fuller, president of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association. To this I say, "Really?" I mean they guy campaigned against public sector unions when you supported him. Then again, I can understand a little surprise at a politician who does what he says he'll do.
In other news, it seems as if the governor is testing the water for having the National Guard take over for the bastard union prison guards (at what cost I wonder?).

Two Links on Pay Gaps

Seems the gender wage gap varies a lot by industry. Kind of mirrors some results in a working paper by Bang and Basu, 2010 (not Atin). If only the jerks fine and distinguished peers who review for journals would publish it. (Economix)

Public vs. private pay gap: it's not what you think, union-haters. (Econbrowser)

On the Future of Democracy in Egypt and China

Dictators, it seems, are increasingly facing a conundrum. Stifle growth and be thrown out now, or foster it and be thrown out later. I've made the same prediction Barry Eichengreen makes here many times over (and I doubt that I'm alone): That is, as a country ruled by an authoritarian regime becomes more prosperous, more and more of the population rises into a growing middle class; it then begins demanding more legal protections for their savings, wealth and property; next, it demands more voice in how the country's politics are administered, along with greater civil liberties; eventually, the authoritarian regime collapses. In the best of worlds, democracy might emerge. I still think China will undergo this sequence, although there is no telling how long the process might take or how long the regime will be able to forestall the endgame by controlling who is able to benefit from the boom and by buying off the small but growing middle class. Egypt is a good example, but whether the end result there is a democracy is yet to be seen.

Some Links on International Economics

I wonder if my students are having trouble finding news articles on international economics for their blog assignment. I'm not.
Trade in intermediate goods and underestimating the gains from trade (Vox).
More on measuring trade flows (WTI).
Opening Japan (again?) (Economist).
Germany's great decade through trade (Economist).
Should the EU ban on seal products be lifted (WTI)?
Somali piracy (and trade costs?) (Economist).
Trade liberalization in South Asia (Vox).
Barriers to remittances (lost gains from migration?) (Peoplemove).
Leaving Tunisia (Reuters).

Another Interpretation of Payroll Numbers

There's been a lot of chatter about the new unemployment numbers. This Free Exchange post talks about some of the methodology, and why, when it's said and done, the unemployment drop is for real.