Which European Union nations do investors in Credit Default Swaps (CDS) contracts believe are most at risk of defaulting on their national debt payments? And how do various U.S. states rank in comparison to those EU-15 nations?

The growth in college and university support staff included some jobs that did not exist 20 years ago, like environmental sustainability officers and a broad array of information technology workers.

The last few decades has seen extensive work documenting the deleterious effects of corporate income taxes - especially for small open economies. These lessons seem to have been taken to heart by policy-makers.

The deduction in our tax code for mortgage interest payments has long been controversial. Economists argue it encourages people to over-leverage themselves, pushes up home prices in areas where new housing can't easily be built, and much of the benefit goes to wealthier families who own larger, more expensive homes, which does little to increase home ownership. Still, the deduction is politically sacrosanct and has been in... More

Sixteen states and D.C. now have double digit unemployment rates. New Jersey is close. Nevada set a new series high; California tied the previous record (since 1976).

This simulation was designed to illustrate the tough budget choices that will have to be made and to promote a public dialogue on how we can set a sustainable fiscal course. How do your choices stack up? Good luck.

We estimate that the deadweight loss to the U.S. economy and taxpayers resulting from the government's "Cash for Clunkers" program to be....

A projection on the 10-best and 10-worst housing markets to invest in, based on local trends and future growth prospects. The Northeast seems left out in the cold, as all the action seems to be South and West.

Moving fiscal policy from an unsustainable path to a safe path would require significant changes in spending, revenues, or both.

Surprisingly–at least to me–the government was a net drag on real disposable income growth in the first quarter of 2010.  A small drag to be sure–roughly 0.2% of disposable income–but certainly not a boost. An increase in benefits was more than offset by an increase in taxes paid. In other words, the fiscal stimulus pretty much petered out in the first quarter.

Per the credit default swap market, California cracked the top ten for highest default risks yesterday.

Going to college is still a good idea–but the payback period is longer.

American and European jobless rates converge.

Research has shown that once negative equity exceeds 25 percent "owners begin to default with the same propensity as investors", and it is these 4.9 million borrowers - with $656 billion in debt - that are most at risk for foreclosure.

Brains and education did not seem to count too much in success in the last business cycle. Overall, the top ten cities, measured by growth in per capita income, had an average college graduate rate of 17.7% The bottom ten cities had a college graduate rate of 31.8%.

The correlation in Europe is striking between the perception of the degree of corruption in a country and bond yields.

Opps! Just as California legislators are locked in a struggle to deal with the state's yawning budget deficits, tax collections plunged well below projections, exacerbating the situation.

A recently released report by the Government Accountability Office attempts to clarify the impact of the cash for clunkers program by determining how many incremental car sales the program generated. The estimates are from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Council of Economic Advisors, and two industry groups.

The Department of Energy has run the numbers on US carbon emissions in 2009, and found they dropped by about seven percent compared to the previous year, the largest decline the agency has ever seen. Although the economic downturn had been expected to lower emissions, the slowdown in GDP only accounted for about a third of the change.

I’m sounding like a broken record, but economic journalists are doing the U.S. a grave disservice by repeatedly overstating the  importance of consumer spending to domestic economic production (which, after all, is what generates jobs).  By persisting in this fallacy,  journalists also understate the importance of investment, exports, and government... More

Banks and governments in these five shaky economies owe each other many billions of euros — converted here to dollars — and have even larger debts to Britain, France and Germany.