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Donald Trump has used his podium on several occasions to harangue companies about moving jobs overseas. This is probably not an effective way to conduct economic policy, but Justin Wolfers misled NYT readers in claiming:
“Research shows that efforts to boost employment by making it difficult or costly to fire workers have backfired. The prospect of a costly and lengthy legal battle for laid-off employees makes it less appealing to hire new workers. The result has been that higher firing costs have led to to weaker productivity, sclerotic labor markets and higher unemployment.”
Actually, more recent research results, including more recent work from the OECD (the source to which he links), show that there is no necessary link between restrictions on firing and unemployment. While excessive restrictions on firing can undoubtedly hurt employment and growth, there is no reason to assume that moderate amounts of severance pay, or other disincentives to dismiss workers, will discourage investment and hiring.
A requirement to give longer term workers severance pay when dismissed does change the incentives facing an employer. In this situation they have more incentive to retrain workers to ensure that they are as productive as possible. They may also opt to invest more in existing facilities rather than move overseas in order to avoid severance pay.
Donald Trump has used his podium on several occasions to harangue companies about moving jobs overseas. This is probably not an effective way to conduct economic policy, but Justin Wolfers misled NYT readers in claiming:
“Research shows that efforts to boost employment by making it difficult or costly to fire workers have backfired. The prospect of a costly and lengthy legal battle for laid-off employees makes it less appealing to hire new workers. The result has been that higher firing costs have led to to weaker productivity, sclerotic labor markets and higher unemployment.”
Actually, more recent research results, including more recent work from the OECD (the source to which he links), show that there is no necessary link between restrictions on firing and unemployment. While excessive restrictions on firing can undoubtedly hurt employment and growth, there is no reason to assume that moderate amounts of severance pay, or other disincentives to dismiss workers, will discourage investment and hiring.
A requirement to give longer term workers severance pay when dismissed does change the incentives facing an employer. In this situation they have more incentive to retrain workers to ensure that they are as productive as possible. They may also opt to invest more in existing facilities rather than move overseas in order to avoid severance pay.
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The NYT had an interesting piece giving profiles of several young people who are struggling to find full time jobs in Europe. All of the people profiled have college degrees, several have considerably more education.
While the article notes that the situation faced by these young people is the result of the weak economy following the crash in 2008, it would have been helpful to point out that this weakness is the result of policy choices by Europe’s leaders. They have deliberately decided to run low budget deficits in spite of the fact that most of the continent is operating well below its potential. Long-term interest rates are very low and inflation remains below the European Central Bank’s 2.0 percent target, which itself is absurdly low.
In short, the plight of these young people and tens of millions of others should be seen as the fruit of the economic policy pursued by dogmatic leaders across Europe. It is not something that just happened.
The NYT had an interesting piece giving profiles of several young people who are struggling to find full time jobs in Europe. All of the people profiled have college degrees, several have considerably more education.
While the article notes that the situation faced by these young people is the result of the weak economy following the crash in 2008, it would have been helpful to point out that this weakness is the result of policy choices by Europe’s leaders. They have deliberately decided to run low budget deficits in spite of the fact that most of the continent is operating well below its potential. Long-term interest rates are very low and inflation remains below the European Central Bank’s 2.0 percent target, which itself is absurdly low.
In short, the plight of these young people and tens of millions of others should be seen as the fruit of the economic policy pursued by dogmatic leaders across Europe. It is not something that just happened.
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It really is hard to understand, the potential gains are enormous. If we got the pay of our doctors down to the levels in other wealthy countries it could save us close to $100 billion a year. Our doctors average more than $250,000 (that’s after paying for malpractice insurance and other expenses), with doctors in places like Germany and Canada getting about half of this amount.
The barriers may not be as large in other highly paid professions (we prohibit foreign doctors from practicing here unless they complete a U.S. residency program), but the economy would benefit enormously from exposing all the highly paid professions to international competition. It is bizarre that this topic never gets raises even in pieces like this one in the NYT touting the virtues of immigration.
(We can deal with the problem of brain drain from developing countries, by compensating them for the doctors and other professionals that come here. Even if we paid them enough to allow them to train two or three doctors for every one that came here, the U.S. would still be way ahead.)
It really is hard to understand, the potential gains are enormous. If we got the pay of our doctors down to the levels in other wealthy countries it could save us close to $100 billion a year. Our doctors average more than $250,000 (that’s after paying for malpractice insurance and other expenses), with doctors in places like Germany and Canada getting about half of this amount.
The barriers may not be as large in other highly paid professions (we prohibit foreign doctors from practicing here unless they complete a U.S. residency program), but the economy would benefit enormously from exposing all the highly paid professions to international competition. It is bizarre that this topic never gets raises even in pieces like this one in the NYT touting the virtues of immigration.
(We can deal with the problem of brain drain from developing countries, by compensating them for the doctors and other professionals that come here. Even if we paid them enough to allow them to train two or three doctors for every one that came here, the U.S. would still be way ahead.)
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The NYT ran a piece discussing the possibility that we are substantially undercounting growth because we aren’t incorporating the benefits of many things we can now get for free, like information over the Internet. There are many interesting issues here, although it is difficult to believe the uncounted benefits add much to growth. We also have uncounted costs, like paying for the cell phone and Internet service that you need now to stay in communication with friends and family. We also have to pay for all sorts of on-line security, which we didn’t have to do before we were on-line. (The payments for antivirus software and other security measures add to GDP and growth.)
Regardless of the validity of the claims for under-measured growth, there is an important logical point. If we are undercounting growth, then we are getting richer faster than the official data show. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein is cited in the piece saying that he thinks we are undercounting GDP growth by 2 percentage points annually. This means that we have to add this figure to current growth rates.
In the case of wage growth, if Feldstein is correct, then average (not median) real wages can be expected to grow 3.5 percentage points annually for the next two decades, rather than 1.5 percent growth rate projected by the Social Security trustees. This means that in two decades real wages will have nearly doubled and three decades they will be 180 percent higher than they are today.
This would mean a great deal in terms of economic policy. We have many people running around Washington warning about how our kids will face crushing tax burden if we don’t reduce our deficits and debt. Suppose that Martin Feldstein is correct and we actually are understating growth by 2.0 percentage points annually. And suppose the deficit fearmongers are right and in two decades we have to raise taxes on our kids.
If we raised Social Security taxes by five full percentage points (way more than any projections indicate would be necessary) their after-tax earnings would still be on average almost 90 percent higher than what workers receive today. In thirty years, their after tax wages would be more than 160 percent higher.
As I said, I don’t think it’s plausible that we could be understating growth by anything close to the 2.0 percent claimed by Feldstein. However, if we are, then our kids will be incredibly rich relative to today’s workers. It would be rather silly for us to waste our time worrying about deficits or debts out of a concern for generational equity. (It is silly anyhow, since debt and deficits have almost nothing to do with generational equity, but that is another story.)
The NYT ran a piece discussing the possibility that we are substantially undercounting growth because we aren’t incorporating the benefits of many things we can now get for free, like information over the Internet. There are many interesting issues here, although it is difficult to believe the uncounted benefits add much to growth. We also have uncounted costs, like paying for the cell phone and Internet service that you need now to stay in communication with friends and family. We also have to pay for all sorts of on-line security, which we didn’t have to do before we were on-line. (The payments for antivirus software and other security measures add to GDP and growth.)
Regardless of the validity of the claims for under-measured growth, there is an important logical point. If we are undercounting growth, then we are getting richer faster than the official data show. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein is cited in the piece saying that he thinks we are undercounting GDP growth by 2 percentage points annually. This means that we have to add this figure to current growth rates.
In the case of wage growth, if Feldstein is correct, then average (not median) real wages can be expected to grow 3.5 percentage points annually for the next two decades, rather than 1.5 percent growth rate projected by the Social Security trustees. This means that in two decades real wages will have nearly doubled and three decades they will be 180 percent higher than they are today.
This would mean a great deal in terms of economic policy. We have many people running around Washington warning about how our kids will face crushing tax burden if we don’t reduce our deficits and debt. Suppose that Martin Feldstein is correct and we actually are understating growth by 2.0 percentage points annually. And suppose the deficit fearmongers are right and in two decades we have to raise taxes on our kids.
If we raised Social Security taxes by five full percentage points (way more than any projections indicate would be necessary) their after-tax earnings would still be on average almost 90 percent higher than what workers receive today. In thirty years, their after tax wages would be more than 160 percent higher.
As I said, I don’t think it’s plausible that we could be understating growth by anything close to the 2.0 percent claimed by Feldstein. However, if we are, then our kids will be incredibly rich relative to today’s workers. It would be rather silly for us to waste our time worrying about deficits or debts out of a concern for generational equity. (It is silly anyhow, since debt and deficits have almost nothing to do with generational equity, but that is another story.)
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Margot Katz-Sanger left this point out of her scorecard on Obamacare. Since people are now able to get inursance through the exchanges, they are no longer dependent on getting it from their employer, which usually means working a full-time job. As a result, the number of people choosing to work part-time has risen by more than 2 million since the law went into effect. The people benefiting have disproportionately been young parents and older workers who are too young to qualify for Medicare.
Margot Katz-Sanger left this point out of her scorecard on Obamacare. Since people are now able to get inursance through the exchanges, they are no longer dependent on getting it from their employer, which usually means working a full-time job. As a result, the number of people choosing to work part-time has risen by more than 2 million since the law went into effect. The people benefiting have disproportionately been young parents and older workers who are too young to qualify for Medicare.
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It’s often said that the economy is too simple for economists to understand it. Neil Irwin gave us evidence to support this assertion in a NYT column today. The piece both raises the question of whether the economy is too dynamic, or not dynamic enough, and what we can do to protect workers if it is too dynamic.
On the first question, we really don’t have to debate much. We have good measure of the economy’s dynamism, it’s called “productivity growth.” Productivity growth measures the increase in the amount of output in an average hour of work. It has has been extremely slow in the last decade, just 1.0 percent annually. It was rapid from 1995 to 2005, at 3.0 percent a year, but this was just equal to the pace during the period from 1947 to 1973. So, we clearly have no reason to worry that the economy is too dynamic.
In terms of protecting workers, the piece makes the point that workers who lose their job due to innovation are an important externality. This is obviously true. It’s also not a new point. Other wealthy countries require that companies give severance pay to longer term workers. This both provides a bit of insurance to workers and effectively causes companies to internalize at least part of the costs associated with throwing a long-term employee out of work.
For example, if companies are required to pay two weeks of severance pay for each year of work, then a company planning to lay off a worker who has been employed for twenty years would have to pay forty weeks of severance pay. This would be a substantial disincentive to laying off workers. Companies would then have more incentive to modernize existing facilities and to retrain workers so they have the skills needed to be as productive as possible.
One of the great things about required severance pay is that it can be mandated at the state level. This means that there is no need to wait until Donald Trump and the Republican congress decide it is a good idea. States with progressive governments can adopt laws to this effect tomorrow. (At the moment, Montana is leading the way, with a law that prohibits dismissal without cause.)
Anyhow, this really is not a hard problem, nor is it new. We can provide a substantial degree of protection to workers from job loss due to technology or any other reason. We have chosen not to do so.
It’s often said that the economy is too simple for economists to understand it. Neil Irwin gave us evidence to support this assertion in a NYT column today. The piece both raises the question of whether the economy is too dynamic, or not dynamic enough, and what we can do to protect workers if it is too dynamic.
On the first question, we really don’t have to debate much. We have good measure of the economy’s dynamism, it’s called “productivity growth.” Productivity growth measures the increase in the amount of output in an average hour of work. It has has been extremely slow in the last decade, just 1.0 percent annually. It was rapid from 1995 to 2005, at 3.0 percent a year, but this was just equal to the pace during the period from 1947 to 1973. So, we clearly have no reason to worry that the economy is too dynamic.
In terms of protecting workers, the piece makes the point that workers who lose their job due to innovation are an important externality. This is obviously true. It’s also not a new point. Other wealthy countries require that companies give severance pay to longer term workers. This both provides a bit of insurance to workers and effectively causes companies to internalize at least part of the costs associated with throwing a long-term employee out of work.
For example, if companies are required to pay two weeks of severance pay for each year of work, then a company planning to lay off a worker who has been employed for twenty years would have to pay forty weeks of severance pay. This would be a substantial disincentive to laying off workers. Companies would then have more incentive to modernize existing facilities and to retrain workers so they have the skills needed to be as productive as possible.
One of the great things about required severance pay is that it can be mandated at the state level. This means that there is no need to wait until Donald Trump and the Republican congress decide it is a good idea. States with progressive governments can adopt laws to this effect tomorrow. (At the moment, Montana is leading the way, with a law that prohibits dismissal without cause.)
Anyhow, this really is not a hard problem, nor is it new. We can provide a substantial degree of protection to workers from job loss due to technology or any other reason. We have chosen not to do so.
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It’s not clear that this is what he intended to do in a column that rightly criticized Donald Trump for quickly abandoning his pledge to force drug companies to lower prices, but it is what he did. Pearlstein asserts:
“Because ours is the only country that does not negotiate prices with drug companies, using a national formulary, Americans pay roughly twice what patients in other countries do for the most widely used drugs still under patent. What that means, in effect, is that Americans pay for the 20 percent of drug industry revenue that is invested in researching new drugs, giving the rest of the world a free ride. In exchange for this largesse, a disproportionate share of the high-paying research jobs are located in the United States.”
Pearlstein is asserting that the United States is making its citizens pay more than people elsewhere for their drugs, in effect as a bribe, to get drug companies to locate research jobs in the United States. This is a clear violation of WTO rules and would be quite a news story if Pearlstein has any evidence to back up this assertion.
As a practical matter, we would expect drug companies to locate their research facilities where the cost of the research is lowest. The cost of research is not affected one iota by what a country’s citizens pay for drugs. Most likely the reason most research is located in the United States is the enormous subsidies that the government provides through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is not a coincidence that a huge number of biotech companies are located in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, right next to the NIH campus.
It is also absurd to claim, as Pearlstein does, that we give the rest of the world “a free ride.” The rest of the world pays plenty of money to finance the research being done by the pharmaceutical industry. The industry only claims to do $50 billion a year in research spending. They collect well over $500 billion a year in revenue outside of the United States. In effect, Pearlstein is claiming that if the U.S. government decides to hand the pharmaceutical industry another $50 billion a year in profits because of the power of their lobbyists, that other countres are free-riding because they are not equally corrupt.
Of course, serious newspapers would be discussing more efficient alternatives to patent-monopoly supported drug research (see Rigged, chapter 5), but the Washington Post gets considerable advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s not clear that this is what he intended to do in a column that rightly criticized Donald Trump for quickly abandoning his pledge to force drug companies to lower prices, but it is what he did. Pearlstein asserts:
“Because ours is the only country that does not negotiate prices with drug companies, using a national formulary, Americans pay roughly twice what patients in other countries do for the most widely used drugs still under patent. What that means, in effect, is that Americans pay for the 20 percent of drug industry revenue that is invested in researching new drugs, giving the rest of the world a free ride. In exchange for this largesse, a disproportionate share of the high-paying research jobs are located in the United States.”
Pearlstein is asserting that the United States is making its citizens pay more than people elsewhere for their drugs, in effect as a bribe, to get drug companies to locate research jobs in the United States. This is a clear violation of WTO rules and would be quite a news story if Pearlstein has any evidence to back up this assertion.
As a practical matter, we would expect drug companies to locate their research facilities where the cost of the research is lowest. The cost of research is not affected one iota by what a country’s citizens pay for drugs. Most likely the reason most research is located in the United States is the enormous subsidies that the government provides through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is not a coincidence that a huge number of biotech companies are located in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, right next to the NIH campus.
It is also absurd to claim, as Pearlstein does, that we give the rest of the world “a free ride.” The rest of the world pays plenty of money to finance the research being done by the pharmaceutical industry. The industry only claims to do $50 billion a year in research spending. They collect well over $500 billion a year in revenue outside of the United States. In effect, Pearlstein is claiming that if the U.S. government decides to hand the pharmaceutical industry another $50 billion a year in profits because of the power of their lobbyists, that other countres are free-riding because they are not equally corrupt.
Of course, serious newspapers would be discussing more efficient alternatives to patent-monopoly supported drug research (see Rigged, chapter 5), but the Washington Post gets considerable advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical industry.
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Yahoo ran a piece pointing out that it didn’t really make sense for Donald Trump to take credit for the jobs report released on Friday since the survey on which the report is based was taken in the middle of January, before he was in the White House. The piece concludes by telling readers:
“So while Trump can’t be blamed for disappointing data or take credit for a good report, next month is all his!”
While the first point is entirely correct, it doesn’t really make sense to give a president credit or blame for what happens in the early months of their administration. The economy has a great deal of momentum, which means it will continue whatever path it is on for some time.
In the case of President Obama, the economy was tanking when he came into office, losing more than 700,000 jobs a month. While he did quickly push a modest stimulus package through Congress, it wasn’t signed until the end of February and didn’t really start to have an impact until April. Even at that point, Obama’s program had to counteract an enormous amount of negative momentum in the economy.
In Trump’s case, the economy is on a path of modest growth and relatively strong job creation. This is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, unless he does something to slow or speedup growth, or there is some extraordinary shock to the economy.
Anyhow, we are inevitably going to try to score the performance of a president and it is customary to treat the day they take office as the starting point for the scorecard. However, as a practical matter, this approach does not make a great deal of sense.
Thanks to Robert Salzberg for calling this piece to my attention.
Yahoo ran a piece pointing out that it didn’t really make sense for Donald Trump to take credit for the jobs report released on Friday since the survey on which the report is based was taken in the middle of January, before he was in the White House. The piece concludes by telling readers:
“So while Trump can’t be blamed for disappointing data or take credit for a good report, next month is all his!”
While the first point is entirely correct, it doesn’t really make sense to give a president credit or blame for what happens in the early months of their administration. The economy has a great deal of momentum, which means it will continue whatever path it is on for some time.
In the case of President Obama, the economy was tanking when he came into office, losing more than 700,000 jobs a month. While he did quickly push a modest stimulus package through Congress, it wasn’t signed until the end of February and didn’t really start to have an impact until April. Even at that point, Obama’s program had to counteract an enormous amount of negative momentum in the economy.
In Trump’s case, the economy is on a path of modest growth and relatively strong job creation. This is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, unless he does something to slow or speedup growth, or there is some extraordinary shock to the economy.
Anyhow, we are inevitably going to try to score the performance of a president and it is customary to treat the day they take office as the starting point for the scorecard. However, as a practical matter, this approach does not make a great deal of sense.
Thanks to Robert Salzberg for calling this piece to my attention.
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