Author Archives: mkevane

Two college professors, Chris M. Herbst and John Ifcher, are challenging the collective, if counterintuitive, wisdom. Being a parent, they say, really does make people happier than the alternative — in part because over the past few decades, those who … Continue reading →

One-Time Transfers of Cash or Capital Have Long-Lasting Effects on Microenterprises in Sri Lanka Suresh de Mel, David McKenzie, Christopher Woodruff in Science 24 February 2012:Vol. 335 no. 6071 pp. 962-966DOI: 10.1126/science.1212973 Abstract: Standard economic theory suggests that one-time business … Continue reading →

Rising import costs (particularly food inflation) are nearly impossible to control when the currency weakens this much. Credit Suisse: With India looking rather stagflationary at present, the Reserve Bank of India faces somewhat of a dilemma. Does it ease policy … Continue reading →

I wonder if Greece was actually sanctioned?  I can’t find relevant news articles, but this one suggests they were not (it suggests Hungary will be first country sanctioned). EU FINANCE ministers have backed a European Commission plan to impose financial … Continue reading →

In 2001, just after Greece was admitted to Europe’s monetary union, Goldman helped the government quietly borrow billions, people familiar with the transaction said. That deal, hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than … Continue reading →

The Greek economy has shrunk by more than a quarter since 2008, and continued to plunge at the beginning of the year without adjusting for seasonal effects, although at a slower velocity. While Greece’s official statisticians do not make such … Continue reading →

FRANKFURT, Germany — Let Greece go. It’s a possibility that’s being considered more and more publicly in Europe.There have been two and a half years of bailouts and broken promises by Greece to reform. The result: a fifth year of … Continue reading →

Established or not, economists are hot commodities. Last year, the average starting salary for new assistant economics professors was nearly $112,000 – the highest ever in inflation-adjusted terms and one of the highest across academic departments, according to the American … Continue reading →

Exports, a cornerstone of China’s torrid economic growth over the past three decades, grew only 4.9 percent last month — half as fast as economists had expected. And a slump in new orders over the past month at the Canton … Continue reading →

Is available here.

A nice discussion of the issues… Last year we had a by Monkey Cage standards vigorous debate about Michael Ross’ American Political Science Review article “Oil, Islam, and Women.” Ross argued that poor progress towards gender equality in the Middle … Continue reading →

with(datasetname, tapply(analysisvariable , list(rowvariable , columnvariable ), mean)) and also after installing reshape and plyr packages: library(reshape) cast(bill1, female ~ competitive , value = ‘score2’, fun = mean)

Wikipedia has a nice discussion of Black Wednesday.

BBC News – Malawi devalues kwacha by 33%, leading to panic-buying The kwacha was devalued as part of moves by the new government to restore donor funding.The former government had rejected IMF calls to devalue the currency.Our reporter says that … Continue reading →

Is this still the main “danger” facing the renmimbi? Measures to suppress volatility may encourage speculators to all line up on one side of the market, at present the side anticipating further appreciation, subjecting the economy to worrisome capital inflows … Continue reading →

The first courses in our training were identical, and so of course I have to agree with Menzie (since that was it for me!) writing about what explains lackluster U.K. performance: I believe the data are not puzzling from an … Continue reading →

I have a special place for the village/town of Tanghin-Dassouri just outside of Ouaga because it is home to the lovely (but closed) Louis Lacaille library.  The town seems like it has a lot of political problems, in evidence in … Continue reading →

Africa received its largest ever share of global foreign direct investment FDI last year, an Ernst and Young survey has said.FDI projects grew by 27% in 2011, pushing Africa’s share of the world’s investment to almost a quarter.FDI inflows, now … Continue reading →