BEA Blog: “The most detailed data on U.S. international trade in services published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis are now accessible through our application programming interface, or API. This includes detailed annual statistics on U.S. trade in services by type of service for 90 countries and areas, including new estimates of trade related to… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2017
New Uber site provides anonymized data from over 2 billion trips
News release: “Every hour of every day, people use Uber to get around the more than 450 cities we serve. From Sydney to Summit, we’ve been working hard to get to know these cities, with the goal of making them cleaner, more efficient and less crowded. Along the way, we’ve found that local leaders, urban… Continue Reading
GAO Report – Retirement Security and Risky Investments
Retirement Security: Improved Guidance Could Help Account Owners Understand the Risks of Investing in Unconventional Assets, GAO-17-102: Published: Dec 8, 2016. Publicly Released: Jan 9, 2017. “People who invest their retirement accounts in unconventional assets—such as real estate or virtual currency—may be placing their savings at risk. Retirement accounts allowing such unconventional investments increase owners’… Continue Reading
Researchers confirm ocean warming underestimated
Via The New Reddit Journal of Science – “…researchers [Zeke Hausfather, Kevin Cowtan, Dave Clarke, Peter Jacobs, Mark Richardson, Robert Rohde] who just published a new open access paper in Science Advances showing that ocean warming was indeed being underestimated, confirming the conclusion of a paper last year that triggered a series of political attacks.… Continue Reading
NYT – Falcons, Drones, Data: A Winery Battles Climate Change
Jackson Family Wines is among California winemakers employing both high-tech and old-school techniques to adapt to hotter, drier conditions: “On a misty autumn morning in Sonoma County, Calif., Katie Jackson headed into the vineyards to assess the harvest. It was late in the season, and an army of field workers was rushing to pick the… Continue Reading
News Reporters Drive Growth in Media FOIA Litigation
“The number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) cases brought by reporters and news organization has substantially increased during the last four years. Media-filed lawsuits which represented 3.5 percent of total federal filings during earlier years jumped to comprise more than one out of every ten FOIA suits (10.8%) at their peak in FY 2015.… Continue Reading
International Trade and Finance: Overview and Issues for the 115th Congress
CRS report via FAS – International Trade and Finance: Overview and Issues for the 115th Congress. Mary A. Irace, Coordinator. Section Research Manager; Rebecca M. Nelson, Coordinator. Specialist in International Trade and Finance. December 21, 2016. “The U.S. Constitution grants authority to Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Congress exercises this authority in numerous… Continue Reading
MA Office of Consumer Affairs Business Reg Introduces Web-Based Data Breach Notification Archive
Mass.gov: “The Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation today announced the online public availability of its Data Breach Notification Archive. The Massachusetts Data Security Law (M.G.L. c.93H) requires any entity that keeps a Massachusetts resident’s personal information to notify affected residents, the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, and the Attorney General’s Office… Continue Reading
Atlantic Council Top 10 Risks 2017
“The Obama-to-Trump transition will be at least as momentous with Europe and Russia also as the backdrop. If the Kennedy years, after this false start, ultimately signaled a segue to what historians now regard as a less dangerous phase of the Cold War, Trump’s coming to power may catapult us to a wholly different kind… Continue Reading
Paper – Foreclosure Sales and Recourse
Westrupp, Victor, Foreclosure Sales and Recourse. (September 15, 2016). Available for download at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2893468 “I document the imbalance of foreclosure sales with respect to recourse laws applied to primary mortgages in the U.S. using geographic state borders as exogenous variation combined with individual transaction data located close to the border. Under a regression discontinuity… Continue Reading
Paper – The Real Effects of NASDAQ Delistings
Liu, Karen, The Real Effects of NASDAQ Delistings (November 14, 2016). Available for download at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2893493 “It is claimed that exchange listing of its stock benefits a firm by improving its stock liquidity and access to capital, thereby affecting real decisions and consequent outcome variables. Testing this claim empirically encounters obvious and formidable endogeneity… Continue Reading
Office of Government Ethics “has lost contact with Pence-Trump transition”
NBC News: “The office tasked with overseeing ethics and conflicts in the federal government struggled to gain access to leaders of the Trump transition team, and warned Trump aides about making decisions on nominees or blind trusts without ethics guidance, according to new emails obtained by MSNBC. Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub emailed… Continue Reading
