NOVEMBER 10 2016

Paul Krugman, NYT: The Economic Fallout. It really does now look like President Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear. Still, I guess people want an answer: if the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard University: Voters sour on traditional economic policy. It can hardly come as a great surprise that when economic growth falls short year after year and when its beneficiaries are a small subset of the population, electorates turn surly. They lose confidence in traditional policy approaches and their advocates. Looking back at the political traumas of 1968 when there were people in the streets in many countries, it is clear that there was something going on beyond specific issues like Vietnam in the US. In the same way as with Brexit, the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the strength of rightwing nationalists in many European countries, Vladimir Putin’s strength in Russia and the return of Mao worship in China, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the world is seeing a renaissance of populist authoritarianism. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the world is seeing a renaissance of populist authoritarianism.

José Cuesta, Mario Negre, Christoph Lakner, VOX: Know your facts: Poverty numbers. The percentage of people living in extreme poverty around the world has fallen by more than half over the past three decades. But polls show that most people are not only ignorant of this fact, but believe that poverty has increased. This column explores progress towards ending global poverty by 2030, the first of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Poverty figures have fallen around the world since 1990, and there is a broad consensus on the policies needed for further reductions. Eradicating global poverty is achievable, but it is dependent on global and domestic political cooperation.

Nancy Cartwright, Angus Deaton, VOX: The limitations of randomised controlled trials. In recent years, the use of randomised controlled trials has spread from labour market and welfare programme evaluation to other areas of economics, and to other social sciences, perhaps most prominently in development and health economics. This column argues that some of the popularity of such trials rests on misunderstandings about what they are capable of accomplishing, and cautions against simple extrapolations from trials to other contexts.

The National Infrastructure Commission, UK: Call for Evidence. The Commission is a permanent body that “will operate independently, at arm’s length from government, as an executive agency of HM Treasury”. NIC has been established to provide the government with impartial, expert advice on major long-term infrastructure challenges. The Commission is launching a 15 week call for evidence to provide input into the development of its National Infrastructure Assessment. The Commission has identified 28 key questions which it believes will be important to answer in order to understand the main infrastructure challenges facing the country over the coming decades.

Patrick Bennett, Amine Ouazad, VOX: The relationship between job displacement and crime. A substantial body of literature finds significant effects of unemployment rates on crime rates. However, relatively little is known about the direct impact of individual unemployment on individual crime. This column examines the effect of job displacement on crime using 15 years of Danish administrative data. Being subject to a sudden and unexpected mass-layoff is found to increase the probability that an individual commits a crime. However, the findings stress the importance of policies targeting education and income inequality in mitigating crime.