A group of studies, rapidly gaining popularity, promise that a massive program of government mandates, subsidies, and forced technological interventions will reward the nation with an economy brimming with green jobs. Not only will these jobs allegedly improve the environment, but they will pay well, be very interesting, and foster... More

In a recent paper Christina Romer, Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist of the Office of the Vice-President, provided numerical estimates of the impact of an increase in government spending on GDP and employment in the United States. Such estimates are a crucial input for the policy making... More

President Barack Obama's $3.6 trillion budget designates $36 billion for transportation infrastructure. State governors and legislatures should spend that money wisely -- and even more importantly, they should use the remaining $229 billion they're getting in stimulus money to put their fiscal houses in order. If they don't, they risk burdening their constituents with devastating taxes in the near future.

Local and state... More

Inflation is reigniting. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced last week that consumer prices, which had declined from November and December, rose 0.4% between December and January, an inflation rate of 4.9% on an annualized basis. The bureau announced earlier that producer prices rose 0.8% in the same period, a 10% annual rate of inflation.

Why is this happening? The answer is painfully clear. From the end of January... More

Christina Romer, the head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, is a liberal economist. The LBJ Presidential Library in Austin is a Democratic shrine. But on a September evening in 2007, Romer used that venue to deliver a bluntly negative assessment of the economic policies that began in the Kennedy and Johnson years. What macroeconomists had believed and done in the heady liberal hour of the 1960s, she declared, was... More

Edward L. Glaeser is an economics professor at Harvard.

In Dr. Seuss' environmentalist fable, "The Lorax,"� the Once-ler, a budding textile magnate, chops down Truffula to knit "Thneeds."�

Over the protests of the environmentally sensitive Lorax, the Once-ler builds a great industrial town that despoils the environment, because he "had to grow bigger."� Eventually, the Once-ler overdoes it, and he chops down the... More

In Greek mythology, both Odysseus and Jason had to navigate the perilous waters between two the horrible sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers in America now face a similarly hazardous path - between succumbing to crippling tort lawsuits and adopting drug contraindications injurious to public health - after the Supreme Court ruled in Wyeth v. Levine that state juries can, in essence, override the... More

This is not the New Depression, but we are on the way to discovering how the New Capitalism will operate argues economist Irwin Stelzer. And in an online exclusive, Vince Cable calls for bonuses to be linked to long-term performance.

Students at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government succeed as policymakers if they take away only one message: "Ask the wrong question, and you get a useless answer." That... More

With the flood of spending coming from the stimulus bill, several governors have held firm to principle. They don't want to take the federal money if federal strings are attached. In particular, they are reluctant to take, for example, the new money for Head Start and child care subsidies if it means the states have to pick up the programs when the stimulus money runs out. As Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina says, "There's no... More

As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and... More