Economics (Theory and Philosophy)
Is ‘Greedflation’ Rewriting Economics, or Do Old Rules Still Apply?
When all prices are rising, consumers lose track of how much is reasonable to pay. “In the inflationary environment, everybody knows that prices are increasing,” said Z. John Zhang, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied pricing strategy. “Obviously that’s a great opportunity for every firm […]
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Employer Practices Limit Workers’ Choices and Wages, U.S. Study Argues
Lack of competition, the Biden administration argues, goes a long way to explain why pay for a large share of the American work force is barely higher, after accounting for inflation, than it was a half-century ago. “The fact that workers are getting less than they used to is a longstanding problem,” Ms. Stevenson, who […]
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Modern Monetary Theory Got a Pandemic Tryout. Inflation Is Now Testing It.
The problem is that the alternative to a Fed response is, at the moment, not obvious. The Biden administration’s attempts at tamping down price increases — longer port hours, release of strategic petroleum reserves, calling out corporate price gouging — have mostly tinkered around the edges of the issue. Those kinds of precise moves to […]
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Economists Pin More Blame on Tech for Rising Inequality
Yet the technological shift evolved as growth in postsecondary education slowed and companies began spending less on training their workers. “When technology, education and training move together, you get shared prosperity,” said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. “Otherwise, you don’t.” Increasing international trade tended to encourage companies to adopt automation strategies. For example, […]
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