Kevin Van Paassen
A roundup of the best economic posts on the Web
The strange relationship between environmentalists and the oil price
Andrew Leach, on Rescuing the frog, reminds everyone to be careful what they wish for if they think higher oil prices is a sure route to a future full of alternative energy: "...[I] you look deeper into the economics of oil and gas, it is not so easy to say that you should pray for high oil prices if you care about the environment. ... Oil, from an economics perspective, is best thought of as a series of small resources, or plays. Each play has some physical and economic characteristics, the most relevant of which are the costs to extract a barrel of oil given current technology, the quality of the oil extracted, and the fiscal regime (taxes, royalties, etc.) in which the play is located."
Who is Jens Weidmann?
With a hat tip to Greg Ip, a profile of Jens Weidmann, who is about to become Germany's top banker and a key player in the future of the euro zone.
The men from McKinsey diagnose Uncle Sam
The Economist posts a McKinsey report, which says that, "to match the GDP growth of the past 20 years and the rising living standards of past generations, the United States needs to boost labor productivity growth from 1.7 to 2.3 percent a year. That's an acceleration of 34 percent to a rate not seen since the 1960s."
The hollowing of the middle in one graph
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post displays a stark graphic from Gallup on the state of the U.S. jobs market:
"Low-skill and high-skills jobs are coming back. The jobs in the middle aren't..... Economies don't generally do well without a middle."
Surrogate motherhood: the case for commodification
On Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Economy Lab regular Frances Woolley takes a thoughtful look at the surrogacy:
"Moreover, now that there is an established international surrogacy industry, anything less than a coordinated global ban on surrogacy will be ineffective or counter-productive. The current bans on payments in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere, to the extent that they make it harder for would-be parents to find local surrogates, increase the likelihood that such parents will seek out surrogacy services in India or other countries where protections for women are weak."