Noah Smith
Why does Wall Street want higher interest rates?
In the celebrated sci-fi comedy “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a supercomputer determines that the answer to life, the Universe, and everything is...
Four reasons many S&P 500 comparisons make no sense
It has become fashionable to compare every financial asset, asset manager or investor to an index of U.S. stocks. For example, many people compare...
Time for land-value tax?
For all the alarm about the "rise of the robots," or "software eating the world" or the peril of climate change, one of the...
China’s currency devaluation can’t be good news
As you’ve no doubt heard, China has devalued its currency. The exchange rate between the yuan (also known as renminbi, or RMB) and the...
The left shows misplaced frustration with tech
Is the political left turning against technology? One could be forgiven for thinking so. Left-leaning media regularly expresses frustration with the titans of Silicon...
A national $15 minimum wage is a mistake to avoid
A while back I wrote in support of the $15 minimum wage initiatives in San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and a few other cities....
Rethinking why bubbles occur
One of the strongest orthodoxies in modern economics is being challenged, and there could be big implications for the state of the profession. The...
The mystery ingredient for great economic growth
Almost nothing in economics is more important, or mysterious, than productivity. It means the amount of stuff - goods, services, economic value - produced...
Econ 101: Chicago? M.I.T.? Nope, Berkeley’s on top
NEW YORK - Which is the greatest university economics department of them all? Many people would answer “Chicago.” After all, University of Chicago econ...
The housing bust legacy? Too much fear of debt
After the great American housing bubble blew up in 2008, taking the financial system and the economy with it, there was an often-bitter debate...
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