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Bailouts, Stimulus and Debt

Recent Research and Commentary

Living in Operatic Times

On Estonia, it looks like the Krugmanloons were wrong and President Ilves was right

April 25, 2013

Julian Morris

The operatic scale of the financial crisis that has engulfed the world since 2007 has finally been recognised. April 7 sees the premiere, in Talinn, of Nostra Culpa, a 16 minute opera inspired by a “Twitter feud” in which Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves denounced New York Times pontificator Paul Krugman for asserting that Estonia’s response to the crisis had not been a success.

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Private Debt Is Crippling the Economy

There won't be a recovery until credit card and household debt levels come down

August 10, 2012

Anthony Randazzo

America’s economic pundits are not very creative. For the past several years, their gripes about economic growth have fallen into several staid categories: Monetary policy (“the Fed should do less” vs. “the Fed should do more”); the struggling housing market (“let housing bottom out” vs. “we must save housing”); income inequality (“it doesn’t matter” vs. “it does matter”); and the federal deficit (“lower taxes, pretend to lower spending a lot” vs. “raise taxes, pretend to lower spending a little”). While most of these are legitimate causes of economic stagnation, there is another category that is having an outsized negative impact on growth: privately held debt.

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California Is Ground Zero for Muni Bankruptcies

When will lawmakers start rethinking how municipalities should operate?

July 26, 2012

Harris Kenny, Leonard Gilroy

If several more bankruptcies pile up, it will look like California's decades-long boom was a modern gilded age.

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The Time-Bomb Keeps Ticking

July 25, 2012, 5:31pm

Tom Clougherty

The Wall Street Journal recently carried an essay by David Wessel, author of the forthcoming book, "Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget". It provides an excellent breakdown of the budget crisis looming over the federal government. Perhaps the most striking fact contained in the essay is that 63 percent of the budget is on auto-pilot...

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Americans Resort to Plastic Safety Nets

Americans are starting to borrow once again, they're doing so at an unexpectedly high level, but it's for all the wrong reasons

July 20, 2012

Victor Nava, Anthony Randazzo

Americans are starting to borrow once again, they're doing so at an unexpectedly high level, but it's for all the wrong reasons. A recent Federal Reserve report revealed that outstanding consumer credit rose by 8 percent in May, nearly double the previous month's growth rate. The increase amounted to a $17.1 billion jump in consumer credit usage. On its face, this may sound encouraging, since more borrowing may translate into more investment, more consumption, and ultimately more economic growth. However, this surprising increase in credit usage was fueled by an 11 percent rise in credit card and other revolving credit forms, while the growth of non-revolving lines of credit actually fell from 9.6 to 6.5 percent. To understand why this matters, here's a little background.

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The Economics of America's Crony Society

How crony capitalism undermines economic growth and innovation

July 12, 2012

Julian Morris

The problem of crony capitalism comes in a wide variety of policies that benefit specific individuals, firms and industries at the expense of everyone else. From occupational licensing laws to corporate tax breaks, and from federal flood insurance to ethanol mandates, capital is being misallocated due to state and federal policies. As a result, innovation, economic growth and employment are being undermined.