Every econ instructor I know has been flat out all summer preparing for the new semester. With all that’s happened in the world, we’ve got a lot of work to do to update our classes to reflect our new covid reality.
So I thought I would see what I could do to help… #teachecon
So over the summer I’ve been working furiously to put together a slide deck that folks can use to their classes with covid examples, recent economic data and studies, and discussion questions.
The covid crisis is the biggest thing that’s happened in our students’ lives, and if we want to make the case that economics is relevant, we need to show them that the frameworks we’re teaching speak directly to these issues.
Hopefully these slides will give you a head start.
I was struck by just how much economics has to say about just about every major development, news story, and policy issue that has arisen in these tumultuous times.
It's certainly given me a useful lens for understanding the world, and I hope it helps you and your students, too
The slides are organized by teaching topic, and they cover both micro and macro.
While they follow the organization of my (amazing!) new textbook in reality, they’ll be a useful complement to almost any Intro (or even Intermediate) course.
If any of this makes you curious about what it’s like to teach from that new textbook I was just mentioning, add your details to this google form, and if you’re a college instructor, we’ll get a (free!) review copy out to you ASAP. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI….
Most importantly, a huge thank you to @fordschool student Jonathan Rodriguez who gave up hours of his summer to work on developing these slides.
The rest of us have just one job: Download those slides, and drag and drop 'em into your course, and do a great job teaching.
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I don't hate this policy as much as I thought I would bc this isn't traditional rent control.
Think of it as macro policy—setting a nominal anchor when the Fed's target isn't working—rather than as micro policy setting the relative price of housing.
The proposed controls appear not to apply to new construction. And so they still allow the price signal to provide an incentive for new construction.
Blunting price signal is bad — to the extent that it affects those at the margin. But this policy is mostly infra-marginal.
Also, these are price control on the rate of change of rent, rather than on its level. If *relative* prices are somewhat coherent now, and the policy is temporary, they'll stay somewhat coherent for at least a few years.
This striking pattern of Trump under-performing his poll numbers continues. According to 538, Trump was meant to win:
- Massachusetts by 37 (NYT says he's up by 23)
- Tennessee by 69 (he's up 57)
- Texas by 64 (he's up 56)
- Virginia by 49 (he's up by 29)
The exception:
- North Carolina by 46 (he's up 51)
Plus in those states with more sparse polling there's no 538 average. But the final Trump-Haley poll suggested Trump would win:
- Alabama by 75 (he's up 68)
- Oklahoma by 77 (he's up 66)
- Maine 58 by (he's up 47)
- Minnesota by 64 (he's up 41)
- Utah by 27 (he's up 14)
Most striking, of course, is Vermont.
There were two polls, and they put Trump up by +30 and +28, respectively. At this point the NYT says Haley will win, by about 4 points.
Yes kids, we are: The inflation measure the Fed targets (core PCE) has run at an annualized rate of 1.9% over the past six months, *below* the Fed's two percent target.
This isn't a one-off blip; it's six months of sustained low inflation.
Core PCE inflation over the past year was 3.2%, but that tells us a lot about what was happening in late 2022.
Over the past 6 months, inflation was 1.9%; over the prior 6 months it was 4.5%. As those high rates "fall out" of the 12 month window, year-ended inflation will fall.
Inflation is now lower than when President Biden took office.
There's no question people are telling pollsters they're miserable about the economy. But riddle me this: Why can't we find evidence of this pessimism in anything other that public opinion polls?
Every non-poll based indicator of confidence suggests folks are optimistic [thread]
Take consumption. If folks were worried about their economic future, you might think they would be squirrelling money away for the hard times coming. But they're spending like they expect ongoing economic strength.
Or investment. If our future were grim, businesses wouldn't want to invest to serve a shrinking market. But they're investing at robust rates.
Let's start with the claim "uncooked turkey" is 7.2% more expensive. That's actually the CPI for a broader category of "other uncooked poultry" which includes Turkey.
But turkeys? The USDA says the retail price of fresh Hens is down -7.6% and fresh Toms are down -8.1%
The observation that retail turkey prices is down is confirmed by the Farm Bureau, which says they're down -5.6%. fb.org/news-release/c…
An absolutely bonkers example of the bad-news bias (and a failure to take Econ 101) in econ reporting: The @WSJ observes that the price of metals used in electric vehicles are crashing, and somehow infers that it will create shortages and snarl adoption of EV's.
The best part: The headline assures us that this is bad for Biden.
But to be clear, it's not just a bad news bias: It's also bad economics.
"Oh no, my product will definitely fail because my input costs are too low," said no producer ever.