Formerly known as our research roundup.
“Taken together, our findings suggest the generous extensions to paid leave were costly, had no measurable effect on outcomes and regressive redistribution properties. In a time of harsh budget realities, our findings have important implications for countries that are considering future expansions or contractions in the duration of paid leave.”
Many thanks to WC for doing all the reading and culling, to give us raw meat. As Wintercow’s senior Senator Chuckles might say, I ask the Chairlady to expand and extend my remarks, once I have checked with the Phillips Curve Oberfuher.
Regarding that abstract on the Phillips Curve:
1) Is English a second language for him because he has a first language , or because he has been taught to write so poorly to discourage his reader from reading further? I tried to follow him until he got to the Myth of the Great Recession, the biggest recession since….Jimmy Carter.
2) What if we go another ten or so years until the unemployment rate does not respond as advertised by printing money to stimulate demand enough to stimulate employment? Do we accelerate government spending? Every time I read Paul Krugman, this has been his answer.
As Cicero might say, Quo usque tandem abutere Crughomine patienta nostra?
So what is the revised schedule? For another year we print another trillion or so and borrow another few trillion to bring down the unemployment rate to what? Six and a half percent? Is that the goal? What happens if that does not happen? Self-immolation of the Princeton economics department preceded by, ”
We’re sorry, have a nice day.”?
I’ll never cease to be impressed by NBER working papers. They’re consistently insightful and relevant. I know that’s kind of the point of the NBER, but it’s still nice to see one after another like that.
What seems strange to me, from an allocation standpoint, is how rising unemployment persistence seems to be happening at the same time as more people are working two full-time jobs. The labor literature has also documented a small but rising mismatch between hours worked and hours desired, as well as an increase in “precarious” work. This is on top of existing stratification in the distribution of incomes. I so far haven’t seen any research on how these fit together, even pairwise.
Thanks for the links! I appreciate your open opposition to the Phillips curve – it’s hard to believe that the Phillips curve is taught as a science. Macro voodoo. It’s frustrating that instead of acknowledging that attempting to predict, and ultimately arrange, the complex orders of society with magical models, proponents of this approach insist that the models have but to be perfected, and require only additional factors to be accurate, or maybe a small tweak.
Pingback: Labor Market as a Dating Network | Lots of Bad Ideas