Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic and a columnist for Bloomberg View. He was the Washington columnist for the Financial Times, and before that worked at The Economist for more than 20 years, including 11 years as deputy editor. Crook writes about the intersection of politics and economics. More
Crook writes about the intersection of politics and economics.
An article by Yale's Judith Chevalier in last Sunday's New York Times slipped by me, until Greg Mankiw's blog redirected me to it. The piece discusses an issue that has so far received little attention, but which is likely to loom much larger before long: the trade-policy implications of unilateral (or at any rate, imperfectly co-ordinated) US action on climate change. Suppose the US adopts a cap-and-trade regime for carbon, as promised by Hillary Clinton, or as… More »
Are the media treating Hillary Clinton more harshly than Barack Obama? Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post:Clinton's senior advisers have grown convinced that the media deck is stacked against them, that their candidate is drawing far harsher scrutiny than Barack Obama. And at least some journalists agree. "She's just held to a different standard in every respect," says Mark Halperin, Time's editor at large. "The press rooted for Obama to go… More »
Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency has revived. Until recently Hillary Clinton had a commanding lead in the polls and was starting to seem unstoppable. But Mr Obama has pulled ahead in Iowa and level in New Hampshire, the states that vote first in the primaries. He is gaining ground again nationally. The television debates, in which he performed poorly, are behind him. What matters now is the ability to move a crowd and the energy of campaign staff on the… More »
Cass Sunstein examines the phenomenon of enclave extremism--the tendency of people to harden their political positions when they interact mainly with others of like mind. (Thanks to A&L.)[O]n many issues, most of us are really not sure what we think. Our lack of certainty inclines us toward the middle. Outside of enclaves, moderation is the usual path. Now imagine that people find themselves in enclaves in which they exclusively hear from others who think as… More »
After more than a week with my Amazon Kindle, I am ready to say I have seen the future of reading. This actual device, mind you, much as I like it, is not yet there--not quite--but it's close enough to be already indispensable, and to prove that the underlying idea is unstoppable. The Kindle is as clunky as it looks in the photographs--and the ergonomics are as awkward. The buttons are too big and squeaky; you can't pick it up without pressing one and losing your… More »
Another vote of thanks to James Hamilton (principal author of Econbrowser and an economics professor at the University of California, San Diego): I cite him again in this column for The Atlantic on the impressive irrelevance (for now) of the price of oil. The oil market is not a bubble--fundamentals of supply and demand, not self-reinforcing speculative frenzy, are driving prices--but nonetheless I am intrigued by the fact that the dearer the stuff gets, the… More »
If you are following monetary policy in these testing times, and especially if you find recent Fed actions (and the markets' reaction to them) puzzling, two posts by James Hamilton at Econbrowser will help. Not that they clear things up, so much. But they make being puzzled an easier position to defend. First, James ponders the "surprise" cut of only 25 basis point in the fed funds rate.Was Wall Street really expecting a 50-basis-point cut? Looking at fed… More »
Clive Crook warns that it may soon be time to panic about the price of oil
Two more reviews of Gregory Clark's book on development. First, Ben Friedman in the NYT (skeptical but fascinated)...Every story has to begin somewhere. Do we think technological progress was responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the astonishing increase in living standards in some countries but not others since then? Fine, but what brought about the new technology? Maybe social and political institutions — democracy, tolerance, the rule of law — played… More »
This is from Dani Rodrik's blog, where Ricardo Hausmann made a guest appearance:Dani has many complex and sophisticated arguments regarding his less than enthusiastic support for the Doha Round and his willingness to entertain the wisdom of a standstill. He argues in favor of Hillary Clinton’s position on this matter and against the view that if trade agreements do not go forward, they inevitably fall back. This may be a tenable position for a trade theorist or… More »
“This is a private sector effort, involving no government money,” Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, said last week, announcing the deal he had just brokered among representatives of mortgage-security investors and mortgage-service companies to freeze interest-rate resets on some loans. He emphasised that the compact was voluntary. “The industry standards announced today do not change the nature of responsibilities in the servicing industry – servicers… More »
My new column for National Journal contrasts the administration's proliferating (and most likely inadequate) measures to solve the subprime mortgage problem with the easy steps that, taken earlier, would have averted it in the first place.If ever there was a case of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," the subprime mortgage mess is it. The Treasury Department, late to the issue, is struggling to contain an increasingly scary problem. All of… More »
Dani Rodrik has two interesting posts on what Hillary Clinton told the FT last week about trade policy, and on reactions (including mine) to her remarks. (The interview with Hillary is here. My first reaction to it is here. The FT also ran a disapproving editorial.) Dani writes:Hillary Clinton has some generally sensible things to say on trade in today's FT, for which Clive Crook takes her to task. Basically, Hillary's point is that we need to take a breather from… More »
Reading the interview with Hillary Clinton in today's FT took the edge off my morning (report here, transcript here).FT: You have said that as president you would take “time out” on new trade deals. But the debate has mostly been focused on the smaller and more symbolic deals like Peru and Colombia. Would your principle extend to the stalled Doha round of world trade talks? HC: Well what I have called for is a time-out which is really a review of existing… More »
Until recently it was possible to regard the US system of housing finance as one of the best – if not the best – in the world. Just as it was intended to, it has supported very high levels of home ownership, notably among the less prosperous. But the semi-public entities chiefly responsible for that success, and the financial technologies they devised and promoted, are deeply implicated in the housing market crash that now threatens the US and world economies.… More »
My new column for National Journal is about mounting fears of recession next year. (lt starts with a discussion of a recent piece for the FT by Larry Summers. That article is here.)Alarm about the state of the economy and the risk of outright recession next year continues to mount. In the Financial Times on November 25, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers -- a more astute or experienced observer would be hard to find -- raised eyebrows when he seemed to put… More »
Thomas Sowell questions the current US preoccupation with inequality.Americans in the top one percent, like Americans in most income brackets, are not there permanently, despite being talked about and written about as if they are an enduring "class" -- especially by those who have overdosed on the magic formula of "race, class and gender," which has replaced thought in many intellectual circles. At the highest income levels, people are… More »
VoxEU has an intriguing post by Keith Head, Thierry Mayer and and John Ries, about their work on distance effects in trade in services. Surprisingly, they find some. Using theory and estimated distance effects, we are able to measure the extent to which geographic separation insulates local workers from foreign competition. The calculations reveal that, from the point of view of a London service purchaser, workers in Oxford can be paid 99% to 373% more than workers… More »
Fragile as the recent improvement in security in Iraq may be, it poses a problem for Democrats, as I argue in a new column:The big question is whether the improving security now speeds America’s exit from Iraq, or strengthens its commitment to stay. You can argue it both ways. Lower levels of violence give cover for a withdrawal of troops without seeming to betray Iraqi victims of the war. Alternatively, diminishing violence shows that larger forces were needed… More »
