Scott Sumner

Hardly a day goes by without further evidence that the world is moving toward Viktor Orban-style authoritarian nationalism. Here's the latest piece of evidence, from the WSJ

The OC Register reports that a California judge has struck down a new law allowing as many as four units on a single lot: “The Legislature finds and declares that ensuring access to affordable housing is a matter of statewide concern and not a municipal affair,” SB 9 states. “Therefore, … (this law applies) ...

America is an outlier. Its GDP per capita is far higher than any other country with at least 10 million people. The US GDP per capita (PPP adjusted) is $85,373, while the next nine range from Taiwan at $77,858 to the UK at $58,880. (All of these are IMF estimates for 2024.) If you prefer nominal GDP measured at current exchange rates, the gap is even larger. The US is again at $85,373, while Australia comes in second at $66,589.

In recent years, there has been a large outflow of residents from California and New York to places such as Texas and Florida. The concept of “revealed preference” suggests that these fast growing states might be the best places to live. But there are actually two ways of thinking about the “best place”:

For many people, a world without zoning sounds like a dystopia. Uninformed people often assume that zoning laws protect homeowners from the risk of ugly industrial plants being built right next door. In fact, there were rules against that sort of “public nuisance” even before the first zoning laws were enacted. The actual purpose of residential zoning laws is to restrict the supply of new housing.

Forget payroll employment, the big news in the jobs report was the decline in wage inflation.

During the period following the 2020 Covid pandemic, many countries experienced relatively high inflation. This reflects two factors: 1. All countries were hit by shocks such as Covid-related supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war. 2. Most countries enacted very extensive stimulus programs, which had similar effects in each case. It was appropriate to allow […]

In a recent blog post, Vasant Dhar had some interesting remarks about the possible role of AI in Fed policy: Might AI help us better understand the data and design better economic policy interventions? Last week I had lunch with some central bankers who wanted to talk to me about AI. They were interested in […]

I recently came across three news stories that are worth thinking about. The first story discussed the US government's role in encouraging gun exports, which often lead to violence in developing countries. Here's Bloomberg

Niels Bohr once said: "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." I say: Prediction is not about the future, it's about the present. Now that I'm fairly old, I can look back on a wide range of visions of the 21st century, many of which now seem obsolete. Here are just a few examples:...