“The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) today released a report entitled Abuse of Market Power for Broadband Internet Access Service: Blind Theory and Bonehead Analysis Can’t Hide the Problem, demonstrating that the recent analyses of broadband prices and services from the Phoenix Center and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) are fundamentally flawed and purposefully misleading.… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® Increases Again
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had rebounded in December, increased again in January. “The Index now stands at 80.7 (1985=100), up from 77.5 in December. The Present Situation Index increased to 79.1 from 75.3. The Expectations Index increased to 81.8 from 79.0 last month. The monthly Consumer Confidence Survey®, based on a probability-design random sample, is… Continue Reading
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices – November 2013
Winter Shows No Signs of Cooling in Home Prices According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices: “Data through November 2013, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, showed that the 10-City and 20-City Composites increased 13.8% and 13.7% year-over-year. Dallas posted its… Continue Reading
Market Efficiency and the U.S. Market for Sulfur Dioxide Allowances
Market Efficiency and the U.S. Market for Sulfur Dioxide Allowances – Working Paper Series, Congressional Budget Office, 2014-01, by Claudia Hitaj and Andrew Stocking. January 27, 2014. “Focusing on the U.S. sulfur dioxide (SO2) allowance market from its inception (in 1994) to 2009, we model allowance prices to determine the influence of market fundamentals—such as prices… Continue Reading
Non-peer reviewed paper on the Economics of Online Postsecondary Education
The Economics of Online Postsecondary Education: MOOCs, Nonselective Education, and Highly Selective Education, Caroline M. Hoxby, NBER Working Paper No. 19816. January 2014 “I consider how online postsecondary education, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), might fit into economically sustainable models of postsecondary education. I contrast nonselective postsecondary education (NSPE)in which institutions sell fairly standardized educational services in return for up-front payments… Continue Reading
DOJ Agreement with tech companies permits limited sharing of FISA Court orders
Via TechFreedom President Berin Szoka: “Today, the Department of Justice announced that it has reached an agreement with Google and Microsoft to allow them and other tech companies to report, within broad ranges, the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court orders they receive, and the number of user accounts surveilled. Google and Microsoft have agreed to drop their… Continue Reading
A First Look at 2002 High School Sophomores 10 Years Later
Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002): A First Look at 2002 High School Sophomores 10 Years Later. U.S. Department of Education – Institute of Education Sciences. January 2014. “This First Look presents findings from the third, and final, follow-up survey of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002). ELS:2002 provides a wealth of information from multiple sources (tested… Continue Reading
The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States
Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States. Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez. NBER Working Paper No. 19843, January 2014. “We use administrative records on the incomes of more than 40 million children and their parents to describe three features of intergenerational mobility in the United States. First,… Continue Reading
Pew – Most See Inequality Growing, but Partisans Differ over Solutions
“The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and USA TODAY, conducted Jan. 15-19 among 1,504 adults, finds that 65% believe the gap between the rich and everyone else has increased in the last 10 years. This view is shared by majorities across nearly all groups in the public, including 68% of Democrats and 61%… Continue Reading
Freedom in the World 2014
“The state of freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year in 2013, according to Freedom in the World 2014, Freedom House’s annual country-by-country report on global political rights and civil liberties. Particularly notable were developments in Egypt, which endured across-the-board reversals in its democratic institutions following a military coup. There were also serious setbacks to democratic rights… Continue Reading
USPS IG – Providing Non-Bank Financial Services for the Underserved
Providing Non-Bank Financial Services for the Underserved, White Papers – RARC-WP-14-007 – 01/27/2014 “One in four U.S. households lives at least partially outside the financial mainstream — without bank accounts or using costly services like payday lenders. The average underserved household spends $2,412 each year just on interest and fees for alternative financial services. Postal financial services may appeal to many customers who feel abandoned by major financial institutions. Postal organizations have… Continue Reading
Oxfam Report – Wealth of half the world’s population now the same as that of tiny elite
“Wealthy elites have co-opted political power to rig the rules of the economic game, undermining democracy and creating a world where the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population, worldwide development organization Oxfam warns in a report published today. Working For the Few, published ahead of this week’s World Economic… Continue Reading
