Stevenson and Wolfers on the Debt Ceiling

Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers have a new article in Bloomberg on the debt ceiling fight (both the last one and the next one), including these charts (click to enlarge) showing what happened to consumer confidence and job growth during the political shenanigans:

The Euro and the Economists

As the euro continues to hobble along, some bittersweet vindication for the economics profession in this story by Eduardo Porter.  An excerpt:

Some two decades ago, when Europe’s leaders worked out the details of their grand vision to connect the European Union with a single currency, virtually every economist on this side of the Atlantic — and most of those on the other — figured out that the euro would be fatally flawed.  What took economists some time to understand was that Europe’s leaders didn’t much care what they thought.

Virtually all economists – except for Robert Mundell, of course – as David Warsh points out here.

Wal Mart and Local Housing Prices

From a new NBER working paper:

Walmart often faces strong local opposition when trying to build a new store. Opponents often claim that Walmart lowers nearby housing prices. In this study we use over one million housing transactions located near 159 Walmarts that opened between 2000 and 2006 to test if the opening of a Walmart does indeed lower housing prices. Using a difference-in-differences specification, our estimates suggest that a new Walmart store actually increases housing prices by between 2 and 3 percent for houses located within 0.5 miles of the store and by 1 to 2 percent for houses located between 0.5 and 1 mile.

A True Empiricist

Fed Vacancies Filled

Finally, some progress on filling Fed vacancies:

The Senate on Thursday confirmed two nominees chosen by President Obama for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, overcoming Republican objections and bringing the seven-member board to full strength for the first time since 2006, before the economic crisis.