Pouvoir d'achat = PIB

Pour les francophones tres interessants article sur le lien entre le pouvoir d'achat et la croissance

Le pouvoir d’achat n’existe pas, chez Optimum

For the non-french speaker, it basically says that increasing the purchase power is equivalent to increasing the GDP, so we should evaluate policy on their capacity to increase GDP.

The report on immigration

I agree with that "absence of proof is not proof of absence".

There are loads of hidden effect, like better service in the Pubs, restaurant better quality of the plumbing labour, that are not taken into account because hard to price.

If the Fed is responsible for the crisis

We should get rid of it.

Alex Tabarrok points to that article while criticizing the position of those who thinks the Fed is responsible but propose more regulation to solve the problem.

Life, Book and Survival

In the book I read recently 3 are Economic centric subject. They are

- The Natural Economist, Robert H. Frank : nice to read applied economy, but kind of repeat it self over and over as the stories are kind of not that different. Nice read though but not as a continuous read.
- Logic Of Life, Tim Harford : I love it, a must read. Well written, funny. Always go from the example to the theory behind.
- Discover Your Inner Economist, Tyler Cowen : Good read, in my opinion it lacks the exposition of the theorical framework. Does not give much insight in the Inner Economist.

If you have to read one go for the Logic of Life.

Not on the economist list, another unmissable read is Survival of The Sickest, DR. Sharon Moalem. It's really informative and entertaining, and full of surprising discovery. A very nice exposition of evolutionary knowledge.

Britain faces worse housing crash than US

Apparently Front page of the metro.


What a surprise!

Panorama - Bursting the House Price Bubble

A must to watch



Special thought to vonric :)

The others 2 parts.
PT2
PT3

Mortgage Fraud in the USA

Vi Marginal Revolution


"
BasePoint Analytics LLC, a recognized fraud analytics and consulting firm, analyzed over 3 million loans originated between 1997 and 2006 (the majority being 2005-2006 vintage), including 16,000 examples of non-performing loans that had evidence of fraudulent misrepresentation in the original applications. Their research found that as much as 70% of early payment default loans contained fraud misrepresentations on the application.
"