February 12, 2015 – “For nearly four decades, the Congressional Budget Office has prepared economic forecasts that underlie the agency’s projections for the federal budget and cost estimates for proposed federal legislation. In particular, forecasts of output, inflation, interest rates, and income play a significant role in the agency’s budgetary analysis; for example, projections of… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: February 2015
Most Detailed Ecological Land Units Map in the World
“Esri and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are pleased to announce the development of the highest spatial resolution ecological land units (ELUs) map of the world ever produced. The Global ELUs map portrays a systematic division and classification of ecological and physiographic information about land surface features. The work was commissioned by the intergovernmental… Continue Reading
Proposed efficiency standard may eliminate noncondensing gas furnaces
EIA: “Following a court challenge that caused a previous proposal to be sent back for further analysis, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a new proposed rulemaking to increase the minimum efficiency standards for gas furnaces, which are mostly fueled by natural gas but also include propane furnaces. Gas furnaces are one of… Continue Reading
Household Debt Continues Upward Climb While Student Loan Delinquencies Worse
NY Fed news release: “In its Q4 2014 Household Debt and Credit Report, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that outstanding household debt increased $117 billion from the third quarter. The one percent increase puts total household indebtedness at $11.83 trillion as of December 31, 2014. Total debt has gone up $326 billion… Continue Reading
Finding Good Health Information on the Internet
Fact Sheet – “Millions of consumers get health information from magazines, TV, or the Internet. Some is reliable and up to date, some not. How can you tell the good from the bad? If you use the Web, look for an “about us” page. Check to see who runs the site. Focus on quality. Be… Continue Reading
The Politics of Selecting the Bench from the Bar: The Legal Profession and Partisan Incentives to Politicize the Judiciary
Bonica, Adam, and Maya Sen. “The Politics of Selecting the Bench from the Bar: The Legal Profession and Partisan Incentives to Politicize the Judiciary.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP15-001, January 2015. “The American judiciary has increasingly come under attack as polarized and politicized. Using a newly collected dataset that captures the ideological positioning… Continue Reading
New Research Paper: How Uncertainty in Climate Science Turns Good News Bad
News release: “Can good news actually be bad news when it comes to the effects of global climate change? That is the question Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Professor Richard Zeckhauser and his co-authors are attempting to answer in a new HKS Faculty Research Working Paper. Their report, titled Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty: When is Good News… Continue Reading
Persons Sentenced: Where Does Your Judge Rank?
“The number of persons sentenced by individual federal judges varies widely, with the top ranking judge in the nation — Robert C. Brack of New Mexico — having sentenced 6,708 defendants in just the last five years. This total is nearly 2,000 more than the next judge on the list. “It tears at my heart,”… Continue Reading
Expenditure Rules: Effective Tools for Sound Fiscal Policy?
IMF Working Paper WP/15/29 – Till Cordes; Tidiane Kinda; Priscilla S. Muthoora; Anke Weber. February 12, 2015. “This paper provides new evidence on the effectiveness of expenditure rules. The analysis is based on a unique dataset covering all countries with national and supranational fiscal rules, including 33 expenditure rules, between 1985 and 2013. It contributes… Continue Reading
Report – Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
Science 13 February 2015: Vol. 347 no. 6223 pp. 768-771 DOI: 10.1126/science.1260352 [subscription req’d]: “Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we estimated the mass of… Continue Reading
Paper – New Ideas in Invention
New Ideas in Invention by Mikko Packalen, Jay Bhattacharya. NBER Working Paper No. 20922. Issued in January 2015. “A key decision in research is whether to try out new ideas or build on more established ideas. In this paper, we evaluate which type of work is more likely to spur further invention. When recent advances… Continue Reading
The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System
“The Eleventh Annual W. J. Usery Distinguished Lecture on the American Workplace, was held on Wednesday, October 8, 2014, at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Robert Moffitt, the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics, Johns Hopkins University [presented] “The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System.” Professor Moffitt’s research focuses on applied microeconometrics… Continue Reading
