Better Data

We need better data.

The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday at a first-of-its-kind gathering of economists from academia and government determined to come up with a more accurate statistical picture.


The fundamental shortcoming is in the way imports are accounted for. A carburetor bought for $50 in China as a component of an American-made car, for example, more often than not shows up in the statistics as if it were the American-made version valued at, say, $100. The failure to distinguish adequately between what is made in America and what is made abroad falsely inflates the gross domestic product, which sums up all value added within the country.


American workers lose their jobs when carburetors they once made are imported instead. The federal data notices the decline in employment but fails to revalue the carburetors or even pinpoint that they are foreign-made. Because it seems as if $100 carburetors are being produced but fewer workers are needed to do so, productivity falsely rises — in the national statistics.


“We don’t have the data collection structure to capture what is happening in a real time way, or what is being traded and how it is affecting workers,” said Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich., who has done pioneering research in the field. “We have no idea how to measure the occupations being offshored or what is being inshored.”

Seminar: Michael Murray

There will be an economics department seminar this Friday, November 13, 4:30-5:30pm in room 230 Wimberly Hall. Michael Murray will be presenting a paper titled, "Modeling Keynes with Pasinetti: A Dynamic Schema for Full Employment."

Michael Murray is a former student and graduate of UWL's economics department. Michael went on to graduate school for Economics at the University of Missouri - Kansas City and is now an Assistant Professor of Economics at Central College in Pella, Iowa.

Increasingly Selective

UW-L is has increased selectivity over the years, often attributed to the rising quality of faculty. A much as I like the compliment it is probably not causal. I think this comports better with my views on why that has happened. From MarginalRevolution

Caroline Hoxby reports:

This paper shows that although the top ten percent of colleges are substantially more selective now than they were 5 decades ago, most colleges are not more selective. Moreover, at least 50 percent of colleges are substantially less selective now than they were then. This paper demonstrates that competition for space--the number of students who wish to attend college growing faster than the number of spaces available--does not explain changing selectivity. The explanation is, instead, that the elasticity of a student's preference for a college with respect to its proximity to his home has fallen substantially over time and there has been a corresponding increase in the elasticity of his preference for a college with respect to its resources and peers. In other words, students used to attend a local college regardless of their abilities and its characteristics. Now, their choices are driven far less by distance and far more by a college's resources and student body. It is the consequent re-sorting of students among colleges that has, at once, caused selectivity to rise in a small number of colleges while simultaneously causing it to fall in other colleges. I show that the integration of the market for college education has had profound implications on the peers whom college students experience, the resources invested in their education, the tuition they pay, and the subsidies they enjoy. An important finding is that, even though tuition has been rising rapidly at the most selective schools, the deal students get there has arguably improved greatly. The result is that the "stakes" associated with admission to these colleges are much higher now than in the past.

A summary of the paper. The ungated version is here.

Economica: Women and the Global Economy

Check out this online exhibit at the International Museum of Women.

CANCELLED: Seminar: Russ Kashian and Matt Kures

On Friday we will have a seminar entitled “Assessing Foreclosure Variations Across the Urban-Rural Continuum - A GIS-Based Approach”, presented by Russ Kashian, UW-Whitewater Fiscal and Economic Research Center and Matt Kures UW-Extension Center for Community and Economic Development. The presentation will be this Friday November 6th at 3:30pm in room 230 CWH. I will provide a link to their paper when they send it to me.

This has been cancelled due to H1N1.

Office Solutions: Econ Style

Check out this new podcast on behavioral economics. The first one discusses the bargaining versus the primadonna solution for who cleans out the coffee pot when the Administrative Assistant is laid off.