by jpitney | Aug 11, 2025 | Business, Economic Policy, Trade
Patricia Cohen at NYT: Smaller firms, for instance, not only have fewer resources to weather unexpected costs, they also lack the bargaining power of megastores like Walmart to pressure suppliers to lower prices. They may also lack access to lines of credit available...
by jpitney | Aug 10, 2025 | Economic Policy, Statistics
At WP, Former CEA chairs N. Gregory Mankiw and Cecilia Rouse explain the need for nonpartisan, trustworthy economic data: The collection and analysis of federal statistics is complex. Often, the first numbers produced are revised as more information is gathered. And...
by jpitney | Aug 8, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Kailyn Rhone at NYT: The sweeping tariffs target nearly all U.S. trading partners and push the average tax on imports to more than 18 percent, the highest since 1934 and a steep jump from 2.4 percent in January, according to Yale’s Budget Lab. While the taxes are...
by jpitney | Aug 4, 2025 | Economic Policy, Nixon
Philip Rossetti at R Street: A number of political candidates who promote price freezes—also called price controls—in industries like housing have recently won electoral victories. This trend makes it worth asking what will happen if the government freezes energy...
by jpitney | Jul 31, 2025 | Budget, Economic Policy, Trade
Jessica Riedl at WP: [E]conomists generally agree that trade wars harm long-term economic growth by limiting consumer options, raising costs, reducing investment capital and killing jobs in industries that suffer from foreign retaliation. This slowdown in the growth...
by jpitney | Jul 28, 2025 | Debt, Economic Policy
Desmond Lachman at AEI: A key vulnerability of the United States is its high dependence on foreigners to finance its large budget deficits. One measure of this dependency is that foreigners own almost one-third of the $29 trillion of outstanding U.S. Treasury bonds....