1
World
Anna Merz, Cheerleader and Guardian for Black Rhinos, Dies at 81
Mrs. Merz founded a wildlife reserve in Kenya that has helped the black rhinoceros come back from the brink of extinction.
2
Opinion
China’s Energy Policy
The Clean Air Task Force disagrees with an Op-Ed writer’s suggestion to replace coal with shale gas.
3
4
Health
Cancer Centers Racing to Map Patients’ Genes
A quest for “precision medicine,” a course for prevention and treatment based on the special, even unique characteristics of the patient’s genes.
5
Business Day
In Europe, Paid Permits for Pollution Are Fizzling
The low price of carbon credits means the market is not pushing polluters to reduce carbon emissions, which most climate scientists believe contribute to global warming.
6
Health
Specialists See Tools to Treat Pain in Video Games
Specialists and video game developers are piloting an approach to measure pain with motion sensor technology to evaluate techniques to treat it.
7
Arts
Designers Versus Inventors
Defining the difference between design and invention is a challenging exercise.
8
Business Day
Treasury Auctions Set for This Week
The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week.
9
N.Y. / Region
Baby’s Latest: Going Diaperless
Parents who are raising children with a practice known as elimination communication say it can keep diapers out of landfills and help them bond with their offspring.
10
Opinion
Sweden’s Closet Racists
When a minister defended racial profiling, I told her to take a walk in my skin.
11
Style
No City for Little Boys
Little boys like mine need to move their bodies, to explore and wrestle and chase each other around. They need to shake the ants out of their pants, and city life just doesn’t allow for it.
12
Opinion
Aid for College Students
The president of Franklin & Marshall College responds to an editorial.
13
U.S.
Water Rights Tear at an Indian Reservation
The dispute at the Flathead Reservation centers on a proposed bill that would specify who is entitled to water, and how much they can take from the reservoirs and ditches.
14
Health
Optometrists Seek Negotiating Power With Insurers
A group of Texas optometrists is lobbying the State Legislature for more power to negotiate contracts with health insurance companies.
15
U.S.
E.P.A. Issues Plan on Tainted Water From Power Plants
Power producers would have to curb the tainted water they discharge into waterways under a proposal issued by the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday.
16
Business Day
Restyled as Real Estate Trusts, Varied Businesses Avoid Taxes
Redefining companies as real estate investment trusts can nearly — even completely — eliminate federal taxes.
17
Opinion
Stream the High Court
Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center says the Supreme Court can increase accessibility right now.
18
Business Day
High-Tech Sports Goggles: Vital Data, or Too Much Information?
Several companies produce sports eyewear that provides data, including speed and altitude, heart rate and time per mile, but critics say the devices create a distraction that could be dangerous.
19
Business Day
Dell Shares Fall Below Buyout Offer Price
The computer maker’s stock slides nearly 4 percent to close below the $13.65-a-share offer made by the company’s founder and Silver Lake Partners to take the company private.
20
Technology
Big Data, Trying to Build Better Workers
In the emerging field of work-force science, companies are using data analysis to help find and nurture successful employees.
1
Opinion
A Photographer's Focus Shifts from Suffering to Serenity
A photographer whose career has focused on suffering turns to serenity.
2
Opinion
China’s Energy Policy
The Clean Air Task Force disagrees with an Op-Ed writer’s suggestion to replace coal with shale gas.
3
Health
Cancer Centers Racing to Map Patients’ Genes
A quest is on for “precision medicine,” a course for prevention and treatment based on the special, even unique characteristics of the patient’s genes.
4
Arts
Designers Versus Inventors
Defining the difference between design and invention is a challenging exercise.
5
Business Day
In Europe, Paid Permits for Pollution Are Fizzling
The low price of carbon credits means the market is not doing its job: pushing polluters to reduce carbon emissions, which most climate scientists believe contribute to global warming.
6
Business Day
Treasury Auctions Set for This Week
The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week.
7
N.Y. / Region
Baby’s Latest: Going Diaperless
Parents who are raising children with a practice known as elimination communication say it can keep diapers out of landfills and help them bond with their offspring.
8
Opinion
Sweden’s Closet Racists
When a minister defended racial profiling, I told her to take a walk in my skin.
9
Opinion
Aid for College Students
The president of Franklin & Marshall College responds to an editorial.
10
Business Day
This Week in Small Business: Apple, Gold and Cupcakes
Apple, gold and cupcakes all tumble. The strangest travel start-up is revealed. The health care overhaul is labeled a huge train wreck. And do you consider yourself a good boss?
11
U.S.
Water Rights Tear at an Indian Reservation
The dispute at the Flathead Reservation centers on a proposed bill that would specify who is entitled to the water, and how much they can take from the reservoirs and ditches.
12
Health
Optometrists Seek Negotiating Power With Insurers
A group of Texas optometrists is lobbying the State Legislature for more power to negotiate contracts with health insurance companies.
13
Business Day
Restyled as Real Estate Trusts, Varied Businesses Avoid Taxes
Redefining companies as real estate investment trusts can nearly — even completely — eliminate federal taxes.
14
Opinion
Stream the High Court
Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center says the Supreme Court can increase accessibility right now.
15
Business Day
Sports Goggles Can Provide Vital Data and Distraction
Several companies produce sports eyewear that provides data, including speed and altitude, heart rate and time per mile, but critics say the devices create a distraction that could be dangerous.
16
Business Day
Dell Shares Fall Below Buyout Offer Price
The computer maker’s stock slides nearly 4 percent to close below the $13.65-a-share offer made by the company’s founder and Silver Lake Partners to take the company private.
17
Technology
Taiwan Tries to Shore Up Its Defenses Against Samsung
There are fears on the export-reliant island that Samsung has deliberately focused on Taiwanese companies in a campaign to undermine their competitiveness.
18
Opinion
More Problems for a Mortgage Deal
A compensation-check problem highlights the need for independent monitoring.
19
World
Relatives of Flotilla Raid Victims Reject Compensation From Israel
The relatives of the nine people killed in Israel’s raid on a Turkish-led flotilla to Gaza in 2010 also said that they would not drop their lawsuits against those involved in the raid.
20
U.S.
E.P.A. Issues Plan on Tainted Water From Power Plants
Power producers would have to curb the tainted water they discharge into waterways under a proposal issued by the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday.
1
Style
Study Links Autism With Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy
A cautiously worded study has found an association between the use of both S.S.R.I.’s and tricyclic antidepressants during pregnancy and an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders.
2
Health
Linking Stress to Diabetes and Heart Disease
Analysis of the stress hormone cortisol in hair samples found that stress was tied to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
3
Health
How Therapy Can Help in the Golden Years
As Americans live longer and the stigma of psychological help diminishes, more elderly people are trying therapy to alleviate problems they face late in life.
4
Business Day
No Interest Card Offers Making a Comeback
Card companies are competing aggressively for customers who have excellent credit.
5
World
More Child Rapes Being Reported In Delhi, Police Say
Five incidents in one week in April alone.
6
Health
Really? An Occasional Drink Is O.K. During Pregnancy
Health officials encourage complete abstinence during pregnancy, though some research suggests that a small amount of alcohol on occasion may not be harmful.
7
Opinion
Aid for College Students
The president of Franklin & Marshall College responds to an editorial.
8
U.S.
Water Rights Tear at an Indian Reservation
The dispute at the Flathead Reservation centers on a proposed bill that would specify who is entitled to the water, and how much they can take from the reservoirs and ditches.
10
11
Opinion
Stream the High Court
Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center says the Supreme Court can increase accessibility right now.
12
Booming
Through Early Lean Years, a Stronger Bond
After 26 years, Pam and James Hayes-Bohanan say their marital success may be because of a couples workshop or just picking the right person.
13
Business Day
Sports Goggles Can Provide Vital Data and Distraction
Several companies produce sports eyewear that provides data, including speed and altitude, heart rate and time per mile, but critics say the devices create a distraction that could be dangerous.
14
Technology
Taiwan Tries to Shore Up Its Defenses Against Samsung
There are fears on the export-reliant island that Samsung has deliberately focused on Taiwanese companies in a campaign to undermine their competitiveness.
15
Business Day
The Small Picture: Delivering the Goods
The Mattress Lot in Portland, Ore., makes deliveries by bicycle.
16
Business Day
Dell Shares Fall Below Buyout Offer Price
These sellers have no confidence a deal will happen.
17
Opinion
More Problems for a Mortgage Deal
A compensation-check problem highlights the need for independent monitoring.
20
World
Russia: Opposition Activist Faces More Legal Trouble
Russian authorities on Thursday accused the political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny and his brother, Oleg, of defrauding business associates of at least $125,000.
3
Business Day
No Interest Card Offers Making a Comeback
10
12
13
Business Day
The Small Picture: Delivering the Goods
14
Business Day
Dell Shares Fall Below Buyout Offer Price
19
Health
The Retirement Home, Alive With Intrigue
A new novel examines the complicated lives of seniors living in a universe all their own.
20
Real Estate
In Search of a Trophy, at Any Cost
With demand for larger and more opulent apartments on the rise developers and marketers in New York are designing ever more spectacular penthouses and town houses in new condo developments.
"April 23, 2013, 8:49 am
45 Comments
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Folly
As I have been writing a lot lately, the
clean little secret of the global economic crisis is that standard
economic theory actually performed pretty well.
It’s true that few anticipated the severity of the 2008 crisis — but that wasn’t a deep failure of theory, it was a failure of observation. We actually had a pretty good understanding of bank runs; we just failed to notice that traditional banks were a much smaller share of the system than before, and that unregulated, unguaranteed shadow banks had become so important. Once that realization hit, as Gary Gorton (pdf) has documented, standard bank-run theory made perfectly good sense of the story.
And the aftermath of the crisis — persistent low interest rates despite high deficits, impotence of monetary policy, major negative impacts of fiscal austerity — may not have been what most economists or government agencies predicted, but it’s what they should have predicted; Econ 101 macroeconomics, as I often point out, has worked pretty well.
Even the euro area crisis made and makes a lot of sense in terms of standard optimum currency area theory.
The point is that radical new theories haven’t been needed at all; off-the-shelf economics, tools we already had, provided plenty of guidance.
In that case, however, why are we doing so badly? And I mean really badly; in Europe, recovery is now behind where it was at the same point of the Great Depression. Here’s European industrial production from the League of Nations starting in 1929 and Eurostat starting in 2007:
The immediate answer is, bad policy — above all, fiscal austerity in
the face of mass unemployment, which is exactly what everything we know
about macroeconomics says you shouldn’t be doing. From the latest IMF
World Economic Outlook:
Some of this reflected the problems of the monetary union — but there
has been a lot of austerity even in core nations. And underlying it all
was the absolute determination of officials to throw out everything we
had learned about macroeconomic policy in depressions, and go with their
prejudices instead. Of course, they found prominent economists —
Alesina, Reinhart-Rogoff — who told them what they wanted to hear. But
there were plenty of prominent economists desperately warning that they
were wrong; it was the policy makers and the Very Serious People in
general who decided who they would regard as serious and worth listening
to — leading to what now look like comical mistakes.
But it’s no joke; it’s a terrible tale of folly and disaster."
It’s true that few anticipated the severity of the 2008 crisis — but that wasn’t a deep failure of theory, it was a failure of observation. We actually had a pretty good understanding of bank runs; we just failed to notice that traditional banks were a much smaller share of the system than before, and that unregulated, unguaranteed shadow banks had become so important. Once that realization hit, as Gary Gorton (pdf) has documented, standard bank-run theory made perfectly good sense of the story.
And the aftermath of the crisis — persistent low interest rates despite high deficits, impotence of monetary policy, major negative impacts of fiscal austerity — may not have been what most economists or government agencies predicted, but it’s what they should have predicted; Econ 101 macroeconomics, as I often point out, has worked pretty well.
Even the euro area crisis made and makes a lot of sense in terms of standard optimum currency area theory.
The point is that radical new theories haven’t been needed at all; off-the-shelf economics, tools we already had, provided plenty of guidance.
In that case, however, why are we doing so badly? And I mean really badly; in Europe, recovery is now behind where it was at the same point of the Great Depression. Here’s European industrial production from the League of Nations starting in 1929 and Eurostat starting in 2007:
But it’s no joke; it’s a terrible tale of folly and disaster."
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