It’s not just how free the market is. Some economists are looking at another factor that determines how much a country’s economy flourishes: how smart its people are. For a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers analyzed test scores from 90 countries and found that the intelligence of the people, particularly the smartest 5 percent, made a big contribution to the strength of their economies.(more…)
In its first quarterly report of 2011, the UCLA Anderson Forecast is cautiously sanguine about the national economy, as real gross domestic product continues to grow at a steady pace and employment continues to increase.(more…)
The United States prizes freedom above most other civic values, yet Bernard Harcourt believes the notion is widely misunderstood and inconsistently applied.
Freedom from government interference is a key tenet of the free market system that the United States champions, but Harcourt notes that Americans expect vigorous government action in imprisoning criminals. The result is a deep inconsistency, he argues, for even as the United States preaches freedom in the marketplace, it maintains the world’s highest incarceration rate. (more…)
*MU researcher says business owners can put their households at financial risk*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Small businesses are seen as an important part of the American economy. These businesses often rely heavily on loans to stay afloat. The recent economic recession has created a reduction in available credit for many small businesses, making it difficult for many businesses to operate. Tansel Yilmazer, assistant professor in the personal financial planning department in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri, says that lack of available credit has forced many small business owners to use their household savings or other personal assets to support their businesses, putting their personal assets at risk.(more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — China should protect land rights of all farm families and restrict corporate farming, argues a Michigan State University researcher whose team found that secure farm land rights will be key to closing the income gap between Chinese cities and countryside.(more…)
Ignoring the stresses of an unemployed spouse’s job search does not bode well for the employed spouse’s job productivity or home life, says a University of Colorado Boulder professor.
Associate Professor Maw-Der Foo of CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business studies employee workplace issues, including those related to interpersonal relationships. (more…)
An article written by Robert J. Shiller, the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, was recently named one of the “top 20” articles in the 100-year history of the American Economic Review (AER), the premier journal in the field of economics.
“Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” was published in the June 1981 edition of the AER and became a focal point of debate and research over the question of whether changes in stock market prices are driven by rational expectations — what’s called the efficient markets hypothesis — or by other forces. (more…)
Have you been unemployed lately? If so, then you probably know how frustrating it is to try to find a job in the United States today. It now takes the average unemployed worker about 33 weeks to find a job. There are millions of Americans that have not been able to find a full-time job even after searching hard for an entire year. Some areas of the United States have been devastated so badly by the economic downturn that they are starting to resemble war zones.
Unless you have been there, it is hard to even try to describe the extreme frustration that one feels when you are unable to pay the mortgage and feed your family. It can be absolutely soul-crushing. But it is not the fault of those who are unemployed. The truth is that our economy is dying and it is not producing nearly enough jobs anymore. Unfortunately, as you will see from the facts listed below, most of the things that are causing our economy to die have no realistic chance of being changed any time soon.
The following are 10 reasons why it has become so insanely difficult to find a job in America today…. (more…)
