Tag Archives: Notes

Britta Glennon reports in an NBER working paper that the two go together. Skilled immigration restrictions may have secondary consequences that have been largely overlooked in the immigration debate: multinational firms faced with visa constraints have an offshoring option, namely, hiring the labor they need at their foreign affiliates. If multinationals use this option, then restrictive migration policies are unlikely to have the desired effects of increasing employment of natives,...

Colleague, co-author, visionary. Assar remains a role model. He was curious, open minded, and incorruptible. He didn’t need to prove himself or that he was correct (politically and otherwise), all he wanted was to contribute and learn. He was a generalist, both in economics and beyond. He exposed nonsense and shaped policy. He will be sadly missed. In memory of Assar Lindbeck.

C. Septhon reports in Modern Consensus: The Sygnum Digital Swiss Franc (DCHF), which is pegged on a 1:1 basis with the fiat currency, was used to complete a payment for an Apple iPad at Digitec Galaxus, Switzerland’s largest online retailer. Coinify, a digital currency platform provider, enabled the sale to take place. Sygnum is different from Tether etc. because it is a regulated bank. Accordingly, DCHF corresponds to a monitored currency board.

The new Global Sanctions Database covers bilateral, multilateral, and plurilateral sanctions from 1950 to 2016.

A new report by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures lists 7 types of frictions and 19 focus areas to address these frictions.

In its annual economic report, the BIS further warms to the idea that CBDC is a key part of central banks’ response to financial innovation. Central banks play a pivotal role in maintaining the safety and integrity of the payment system. They provide the solid foundation by acting as guardians of the stability of money and payments. The pandemic and resulting strain on economic activity around the world have confirmed the importance of central banks in payments. Digital innovation is...

On Alphaville, Claire Jones and Izabella Kaminska discuss privacy issues related to CBDC. In the background, Kocherlakota’s “Money is Memory” is lurking.

VoxEU, June 22, 2020. HTML. Is macroeconomics useful? Of course. To make the point, academics must regain the interpretative high ground from market commentators. While it helps when policymakers understand fundamental macroeconomic concepts, it is equally important for the general public to grasp them. More, and how this relates to the new textbook, on VoxEU.

Stonehenge is tiny. Dalya Alberge reports in the Guardian.

Quality, not subject or object, as the elementary fabric. ἀρετή. A rehabilitation of the sophists. Some quotes: If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of...