Full Disclosure: My Partner, The Labor Economist
I’ve been writing a bit recently about labor issues, and about topics which touch on administration policy. And my better half, Betsey Stevenson, is currently serving in the administration as Chief Economist at the Department of Labor. So I realized that a disclosure about all of this is probably in order. Rather than mindlessly re-type this disclosure every time I write about anything where there’s any possibility of a conflict, I thought I would outline it all here, now, and just link to this in the future. Read More »
Freakonomics Radio: Things Our Fathers Gave Us
Father’s Day has a shamelessly commercial history. Some people think it was invented by the Associated Men’s Wear Retailers to push ties and socks. (It seems to have done a great job!) But we have a better idea: this year, send Dad a podcast. Our new Freakonomics Radio podcast, called “Things Our Fathers Gave Us,” (you can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen live via the media player at the top, or read the transcript here) contains a Father’s Day trifecta. First, Steve Levitt talks about what he learned from his dad, good and bad:
LEVITT: Not everyone will agree that all the lessons my father taught me were the right ones. For instance, I learned from him that men don’t cry, ever. That’s a lesson I’ve tried to unlearn as an adult, but without much success. I can say this, however. Everything that is interesting about me today I owe to the mischief that my father and I engaged in when I was young.
Next, I share one of the best lessons I ever learned, over a diner meal with my dad, who taught me to play a game called Powers of Observation. Read More »
We’re Halfway to a Lost Decade
Our current slump began a lot earlier than you think. Which means that we’re halfway to a lost decade.
Many people date the financial crisis as beginning when Lehman collapsed in September 2008. But the economy was already in recession. The NBER reckons the recession began in December 2007. But look closely, and you’ll see that it may have begun a year earlier.
That’s the case I made in my latest Marketplace commentary, which you can listen to here. The point is more easily made with a simple graph. (Click inside the story for a bigger version).
The blue line is the usual measure of GDP, which is obtained by adding up total spending. When you read the newspapers, this is the number they report. But the Fed’s Jeremy Nailewaik has convincingly shown that the red line—which is the sum of all income—is the more reliable measure. In theory the two lines should be identical—one person’s spending is another’s income—but in practice, the measurements differ. I’ve also plotted the peak, trough, and latest reading of each measure. Read More »
A Secondary Market for Graduate Degrees?
I recently finished the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia. It’s a one-year program that lets business journalists take classes across the university to “enhance their understanding and knowledge of business, economics and finance.” One of the program’s perks, and there are many (including dinners with the likes of Paul Volcker, Jamie Dimon, and Joseph Stiglitz), is that you can get an M.S. degree from Columbia’s journalism school by taking just six additional credits. Considering it usually takes 30 credits, and about $53,000, to get one of those, it’s a pretty good deal.
Back in 2006 I got my M.S. from the J-school, the old-fashioned way. So during my Bagehot tenure, I didn’t take a single additional class there. And yet, come graduation day, they gave me a second diploma. Expecting just the certificate in economics and business journalism that comes with the fellowship, I was too stunned to say anything as they handed it to me up on stage, and I certainly wasn’t going to give it back. But what the heck am I going to do with two degrees from the same school? Read More »
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 