Economics entries
Location, Location, Location
I’m back in the Bay Area for work, and out of curiosity I thought I’d check in on the housing market here. After updating my super-secret source of housing...
published on Wednesday, February 13 2008 ( 3 comments )
The Flipperdex
I’ve been playing with sales data for houses in the Bay area for a while, and have always wanted to come up with an index of same-home sales —...
published on Monday, October 16 2006 ( 3 comments )
Housing Derivatives
The Economist gives a heads-up [subscription required] about the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s plans for housing derivatives; In the next few weeks, the CME is likely to open trading in...
published on Sunday, April 23 2006 ( 2 comments )
Looking for a Big House? Wait!
Most discussion you see about the housing market these days tends to focus on a) whether there’s a bubble (reliable sources say yes, at least in many places) and...
published on Sunday, April 9 2006 ( 2 comments )
Workers of the World, Untie
A few snippets from the day; 1) The Wall Street Journal reports on the divergence between productivity and wages; Since the end of 2000, gross domestic product per person...
published on Sunday, March 26 2006 ( 1 comment )
Prosper
So, a few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Galleria with Pete and Brian, having a coffee and talking about work. When, up comes two women with clipboards,...
published on Wednesday, February 15 2006
Choosing a School in a Global Marketplace
Every parent should take a flip through the OECD’s Education at a Glance*, their annual look at the state of learning in most industrialised countries. Why? First of all,...
published on Wednesday, December 21 2005 ( 5 comments )
The End Is Nigh?
Bloomberg calls it; In the U.S. bond market, the housing bubble has burst. Bonds backed by home loans to the riskiest borrowers, the fastest growing part of the $7.6 trillion...
published on Tuesday, December 6 2005
Bubble Fun
It seems that the debate has switched from if there’s a housing bubble to when and where it will pop. “Americans pay for their houses with money they borrowed from...
published on Thursday, August 25 2005
Wanted: Blogging Fund Manager
Does anybody know of a mutual fund manager who also has a blog? I’d be interested if someone in the financial industry had such a rich channel to their...
published on Thursday, August 25 2005
Who Do We Work For?
The FT Global 500 is pretty much what you see when you look up “capitalistic orgy” in the dictionary. It’s a compilation of the largest 500 mega-corporations in the...
published on Saturday, July 23 2005 ( 20 comments )
Another, More Disturbing Reason Not to Buy a House
As you might guess, I’m not too keen on buying a house at the moment, due to what I (and others) perceive to be a bubble in prices. That’s...
published on Thursday, June 23 2005 ( 8 comments )
Bubble News Roundup
This week the Economist continues casting doubt upon the notion that housing prices will continue going up, up, up: This boom is unprecedented in terms of both the number...
published on Monday, June 20 2005 ( 3 comments )
Freakonomics
After hearing a review on NPR and reading the Economist’s, I was (as was once said) with child to read Freakonomics. After finding myself in a queue of 411...
published on Sunday, May 22 2005 ( 3 comments )
Effects of Australian Tax Cuts
Last week, the Australian government announced a new budget. It included a number of tax cuts that were even more ambitious than expected. To help figure out who these...
published on Sunday, May 15 2005 ( 1 comment )
Notes on Generational Accounting
Social Security represents a pact between generations—a financial and social commitment among people of all ages. — US Social Security Administration Although George Bush has caused a brouhaha with...
published on Tuesday, May 10 2005 ( 4 comments )
Arguments for Buying a House Now
In the interest of equal time, two quotes attributed to Keynes; If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million,...
published on Sunday, May 1 2005
More notes on the Bay area housing market
Carlos sent me an interesting summary page about the Bay area housing bubble. I wish there were more links substantiating the assertions there (a few ring false), but it is...
published on Saturday, March 5 2005 ( 40 comments )
Who’ll Clean Up?
Listening to people talk about the economy -- and the housing bubble in particular -- made me wonder; what happens after it bursts?
published on Saturday, February 5 2005 ( 1 comment )
Shop ‘til you Drop
Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish. But you should hear what he’s saying in private. Roach met...
published on Friday, November 26 2004
Saving the Village with Wal-Mart
In BusinessWeek, Chris Kenton brings us a thoughtful piece about the Faustian bargains that localities are making in the name of progress; [A]t the end of the day, we...
published on Monday, September 6 2004
Innocent Fraud
...I have learned that to be right and useful, one must accept a continuing divergence between approved belief -- what I have elsewhere called conventional wisdom -- and the reality. And in the end, not surprisingly, it is the reality that counts.-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Economics of Innocent Fraud"I'm just starting this book, but it's pretty thought-provoking so far.
published on Thursday, September 2 2004
“It seems that the housing party is over”
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article, “Hot Housing Market Simmers Down.” I can’t reference it directly because I’m not a subscriber, but it basically notes that, according to the...
published on Wednesday, August 25 2004 ( 2 comments )
On Jargon and Applicability
Alfred Marshall, who is credited with turning economics from a sideline to a proper discipline of its own, had this to say: (1) Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry. (2) Keep to them till you have done.... (4) Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life.
published on Thursday, August 19 2004 ( 1 comment )
Geopolitical Arbitrage
To develop a previous theme; As markets become more transparent and liquid, it becomes more easy to see opportunities for arbitrage. A wide-scale example of this (to stretch the definition...
published on Friday, July 2 2004 ( 8 comments )
More on the Housing Bubble^H^H^H^H^H^HMarket
HSBC has apparently been indiscreet enough to call it a bubble, but I can’t find the actual report (“The U.S. Housing Bubble — The case for a home-brewed hangover.”). Anyone...
published on Wednesday, June 30 2004 ( 1 comment )
Social Security
If you work in the United States or intend to retire there, grab yourself a copy of today’s Wall Street Journal, which contains a special section that covers this topic...
published on Monday, June 28 2004
Why I Won’t Be Buying a House in the Bay Area Soon
Benjamin Wallace-Wells’ “There Goes the Neighborhood” captures what many have been saying for a while now; it’s a bubble, a bubble, a bubble....
published on Monday, May 31 2004 ( 1 comment )
Taxing Wages
I probably shouldn’t go around interpreting OECD statistics, as I’m not an economist (I just play one on the Web). However, the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration has...
published on Sunday, May 2 2004 ( 12 comments )
Economic Indicators from the Web
An idea for the LazyWeb: Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is a measure of how much goods and services cost in different countries, irrespective of exchange rate; it’s a way to...
published on Sunday, May 2 2004
Economic Approaches to Spam
SPF is getting a lot of attention, but it’s got some pretty fundamental limitations, as well as some shorter-term practical problems. What else is there? An approach that makes sense...
published on Sunday, February 15 2004
Redefining the Ability to Pay
I know little about the politics or economy of Canada, but a proposal by Tony Clement (Conservative) is interesting. Mike Moffatt explains; The innovative “JumpStart” program he’s proposed would tie...
published on Saturday, February 14 2004
Papa Leave
This week’s Economist has an interesting article about parental leave in Sweden (alas, the Web version requires a subscription), a long-standing and generous benefit; they can take up to 13...
published on Tuesday, January 13 2004
Seen this week's Economist?
Concise and witty, as always....
published on Saturday, September 20 2003
Global house prices
I've been following the Economist's new Global Housing Index with some interest. They seem to have softened their view somewhat, but I'm hearing more about a global housing bubble recently...
published on Tuesday, September 3 2002