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Link Biscuits: 5 February 2010

Submitted by Shawn Fremstad on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 23:56
  • Clay Risen, All Bark, No Bite: The Decline of Germany's Social Democrats: "On September 25, 2009, two days before Germany’s national elections, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) debuted its campaign mascot: the terrier. ... Terriers are wonderful animals and adored by Germans, but they hardly made for a compelling image of political fortitude. Nor, come that Sunday, did the SPD."
  • Jonathan Heathcote and Fabrizio Perri, Economic Inequality During Recessions: "In 1992, Sweden experienced a severe recession that caused a dramatic increase in earnings inequality. However, inequality in total household pre-tax income and in disposable income (which includes taxes) barely moved. Compared to Sweden, the government in the US plays a smaller role, and taxes and transfers only partially offset widening earnings inequality in recessions. In particular, inequality in total household income [in the United States] increased during the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s."
  • Alexander Gelber and Joshua Mitchell, Work in the Home and the Market: Understanding Single Women's Choices: "... our finding that the increase in market work corresponds largely to a decrease in housework suggests that public policies affecting labour force incentives may largely shift people from one productive activity to another. In a world of ideal data, we would also be able to observe the intensity with which they perform home and market work, and how much they value what they produce. Nonetheless, since the policy reforms we examine were motivated in part by decreasing the “unproductive” activity of “idle” single mothers, it is notable that the policies seem to have shifted individuals from work at home to work in the market."
  • Edward Glaeser, Success of the Left in Europe, The Right in US: "Over decades, the success of the left in Europe and the right in the United States has led to wildly different beliefs about the nature of poverty and success. We found that 60 percent of Americans thought that the poor were lazy, while only 26 percent of European share that view. Fifty four percent of Europeans think luck determines income; only 30 percent of Americans concur. These differences don’t reflect economic reality. The American poor work longer hours than their European counterparts. They instead reflect the long-run ability of politics to shape public opinion. Institutions, like proportional representation, that empower the left do a good job of explaining which nations have opinions associated with the left, like the view that chance determines success."