Voting is like playing the lottery

Suppose a number of candidates face off in a plurality-rule election. Excepting your vote, let the spread between the top two candidates’ vote totals be greater than one. Whichever way you vote (or don’t vote), then, the very same candidate will win the election.

Unless the would-be winner’s margin of victory is one or less, your vote cannot influence the election’s outcome. The probability of such a narrow spread is approximately zero.

Voting is not a very effective way of influencing election outcomes under most circumstances. It merely provides the possibility of influencing election outcomes. Similarly, buying a lottery ticket is not a very effective way of striking it rich under most circumstances. It merely provides the possibility of striking it rich.

Is the explanation of why people vote similar to the explanation of why people play the lottery? Are these the same people?

Optimally financing society’s medical expenses

Thought experiment: Suppose we were to institute a free market in medical finance—that is to say, permit consumers of medical care and producers of financial instruments to enter into whichever kinds of consensual transactions (pertaining to medical finance) they choose, without favoring any particular model(s) by means of public policy. What is there to fear in such a setup?

Concern #1: The poor would not be able to purchase a decent minimum of health care without giving up other essential spending (e.g., shelter). They do not deserve to be in this position—they consciously chose neither their genetic endowments, nor the childhood environments in which they were raised (nor the social circumstances they inherit, for that matter). It is unfair, therefore, to deny them standards of medical care that their more fortunate peers would be able to secure for themselves in the marketplace.

Reply: Indeed. The solution is to transfer wealth from those who have more of it to those who have less of it, up to a point. Such transfers discourage the creation of wealth. We must, therefore, delicately balance our desire for fairness with our desire for prosperity. I do believe, however, that doing so would leave us with ample room to improve the relative plight of the poor.

Concern #2: Cutting poor people checks is only part of the solution. What if, instead of purchasing necessary medical care, for example, a poor person blows her transfer payments on drugs?

Reply: Is she obviously engaging in self-destructive behavior? If she is, then there is a case for encouraging her to spend her money more constructively. A simple subsidy (e.g., a tax break) for buying essential medical care would probably do the trick. If she is obviously harming herself by not having particular financial products (for instance, catastrophic insurance, or a medical savings account), then specifically subsidizing her purchase of these is reasonable enough.

It is worth noting, however, that it is usually not obvious whether someone is engaging in self-destructive behavior. Our everyday decisions force us to make immeasurably complex calculations, which in turn draw upon extensive information about our preferences and the circumstances we inhabit, data concerning which is frequently inaccessible to outside observers.  This is neither to say that humans never engage in self-destructive behavior, nor that outsiders never improve upon the decisions of others. Instead, my claim is simply that it is not often the case that someone is obviously doing harm to themselves. As a consequence, the burden of proof is borne by those who want to encourage people to make different decisions—and it is a heavy burden indeed.

Concern #3: These proposals address the unfairness of some people being less wealthy than others, but they do not address the unfairness of some people being less healthy than others. Why should some have to pay more for medical care than others, simply because their health is in poorer condition (through no fault of their own, needless to say)?

Reply: It is not just sick people who have to pay more than their peers to remedy their God-given deficiencies. Ugly people, too, have to pay more than their peers to look better to others, to feel better about how they look, etc. Stupid people have to pay more than their peers to do better in school, or to do better on the job, etc. These observations do not serve to trivialize poor health. Instead, they underscore the uniqueness of economic inequality as a policy objective.

Usually, a very wealthy sick person is much better off than a very poor healthy person, because a poor person is likely to have many more problems to worry about besides her health, while having few resources to throw at such problems. A wealthy person, by contrast, is likely to have many fewer problems to worry about besides her health, while having a lot of resources to throw at the problem. The problem of poverty is not a problem of having inferior housing, or low-quality education, or inadequate nutrition—it is a problem of not having enough money. To a large (though far from complete) extent, the problem of ill health is a problem of not having enough money, too.

On a more practical note, just as transfers from rich to poor discourage wealth creation, transfers from healthy to sick encourage unhealthy lifestyle choices, which play a large role in shaping longer-term health outcomes (according to some experts, a much larger role than adequacy of medical care). Policies like ‘community rating’ effectively enact such transfers, driving up the cost of medical care in the long run. Consider this one more reason to focus discussions of fairness on economic inequality, rather than on health inequality.

Concern #4: What about spillover effects? Suppose people decide to forgo vaccination for a contagious disease, knowing that they may free ride on others’ vaccinations. Should we not encourage people to get vaccinated? Or consider the fact that our society simply is not going to let poor people with medical emergencies die in the streets. In light of guaranteed emergency care, should we not demand that everyone be able to pay up in the event of a medical emergency?

Reply: In principle, this is unobjectionable. In practice, it is a question of magnitudes. If the social cost of uncompensated emergency care, for example, is very high indeed, then mandating and subsidizing purchase of catastrophic health insurance is sensible enough. Similarly, if a disease is sufficiently dangerous and sufficiently contagious, subsidizing vaccinations is entirely appropriate. Where the social cost is low or negligible, the cure may prove to be worse than the disease, pardon the pun.

Another example relates to our earlier discussion of lifestyle choices. If the reason why uncompensated emergency care is so costly is that people are making unhealthy lifestyle choices (e.g., becoming obese), putting them at risk of various medical emergencies, then it may make more sense, depending on the science, to discourage obesogenic diets than to make insurance mandatory.

Concern #5: Even in the context of a fair distribution of wealth, a free market in health insurance would not work to the benefit of consumers. Since insurance companies would not know as much about a customer’s health as the customer herself, they would have to charge potentially very different customers roughly similar prices. This would cause healthier people to conclude insurance is a bad deal for them, dropping out of the pool, leaving it riskier on average. Responding to this, insurance companies would raise prices, causing still more (relatively) healthy people to drop out of the pool, causing prices to rise further, and so on and so forth. In equilibrium, the market would disappear, failing to serve the medical care financing needs of consumers.

Reply: This problem, known as ‘adverse selection’ in economics, is only a problem to the extent that insurance companies cannot bridge the informational divide. In reality, they work very hard to do this, under the heading of ‘medical underwriting’. Such screening procedures are hardly perfect, but then, consumers’ knowledge of their own health risks is hardly perfect, either. There is little evidence of adverse selection in existing health insurance markets, except in places where public policy actively discourages medical underwriting (e.g., through community rating and ‘guaranteed issue’ policies, which blunt insurer’s incentives to bridge the informational divide). Remember that the goal of such policies (greater equity in the distribution of medical care) is better pursued through explicit transfers, which neither cause adverse selection, nor discourage healthy lifestyle choices.

Concern #6: The case for free markets is premised upon competition. Competition between providers of medical finance ought to, in theory, drive down prices, while increasing quality. Why, then, do premiums keep rising in our medical insurance market? Why do these higher premiums largely support profits rather than better medical care? Is it not because the market for medical insurance is intrinsically non-competitive?

Reply: It is true that the market for medical insurance in the US is hardly competitive, but this is not intrinsic to the provision of medical insurance. Economies of scale in the insurance business do give larger firms a competitive edge over their smaller peers, but there are diminishing returns to scale, and there is little evidence that monopoly, or oligopoly, is the inevitable outcome of a free market in medical insurance. The US medical insurance market is mostly non-competitive due to regrettable public policies.

On the supply side, the US restricts competition between insurers across state lines. Given economies of scale, this encourages the formation of local monopolies. Additionally, a large number of regulations at the state and local levels raise the fixed costs of being in the insurance business, costs which it is easier for larger firms to bear—this, too, encourages insurance companies to scale up beyond what is socially optimal.

On the demand side, employer-provided health insurance is tax-deductible. Consequently, most workers get their insurance plans through their employer. For the majority of workers, the choice of the right job is much more important than the choice of the right health insurance plan. This bit of tax policy thus discourages workers from smart shopping in the insurance market. Employers, in turn, do not really care which insurance plans their employees have, for the cost of these plans is simply deducted from the wages they pay. There is, therefore, little pressure from the demand side for insurers to compete on price and quality.

Concern #7: What, then, should we do about people who, through no fault of their own, would be uninsured because of pre-existing conditions?

Reply: This question reflects a misunderstanding of the concept of insurance. Why do people buy medical insurance? They do so because their health is at risk (e.g., they may get hit by a bus), and they are willing to pay some amount for someone to take the associated medical risk (e.g., expenses for having their injuries treated) off of their hands. Why, then, do people sell medical insurance? They do so because even if the future health status of each of their customers is very unpredictable, the future health status of their entire pool of customers is reasonably predictable. This is a straightforward consequence of the Law of Large Numbers. As a result, insurers take on less medical risk than their customers compensate them for, yielding insurers profit. In short, the value of insurance is that, by pooling the risks of diverse customers, it reduces the aggregate risk borne by the pool as a whole.

What does this have to do with pre-existing conditions? Simple: if you have a pre-existing condition, there is no risk to be insured. For example, if you have cancer, there is no risk that you will demand expensive treatment—this is a certainty. “Insuring” certainties does not add value to anything. What people with pre-existing conditions need is not insurance, it is money. If someone already has plenty of money, public policy need not be concerned with her. If she does not, then the solution, once more, is to give her more money.

Requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions is to require them to get into a business besides insurance—namely, the business of pre-payment and/or redistribution. We should hardly expect insurance companies to be suited for this. What ever happened to specialization?

Conclusion: I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. There is little to fear in a free market in medical finance that a few, simple, well-designed subsidies cannot fix. Such subsidies warrant caution: I have been writing of the market for medical finance instead of the market for medical insurance, because this is not something we should pre-judge. Insurance was once a novel financial instrument. Innovation in medical finance may one day render it obsolete, which is something public policy should not get in the way of with outdated subsidies. Even today, we likely rely too much upon health insurance, when we should also be relying on medical savings (the tax-deductibility of employer-provided health insurance favors premium-heavy insurance plans over deductible-heavy plans, for example). Insofar as the many purported problems with free market health insurance are really problems, however, the right fix is delicate subsidies, not command-and-control regulation.

With the Supreme Court likely to strike down the PPACA’s individual mandate, comprehensive reform may soon be back on the agenda. Here’s to hoping that future proposals focus on deregulating the health insurance industry, ending the tax-deductibility of health insurance, and converting programs like Medicare and Medicaid into lump-sum subsidies for the poor. If, in such a liberalized, egalitarian environment, many people continue to do obvious damage to themselves by failing to purchase enough medical care, or by failing to purchase the right sorts of financial instruments pertaining to medical care, then we ought to discuss in more detail the merits of subsidizing this or that.

Of course, I have deliberately ignored the elephant in the room—the ballooning cost of medical care itself. For another day, I guess.

What is the cognitive status of social scientific models?

Think first about the following question: Why do we take seriously the claims to approximate truth of many natural scientific theories? We do so, in my view, mostly when such theories make predictions about observable phenomena that exhibit accuracy, precision, reliability, etc. These qualities do not exhaust the virtues of good natural scientific theories, but when a theory enjoys them to a great extent, its verisimilitude is hard to deny. The striking fact of a theory’s extraordinary predictive success cries out for explanation. The only non-miraculous explanation for this success, really, is that it is approximately true. A theory may have other features to recommend it, even if its predictions come up short, but the less compelling a theory’s predictive track record, the easier it is to explain its good qualities without invoking its approximate truth.

What, then, should be our view of social scientific models, the overwhelming majority of which fail to meet ordinary natural scientific standards of predictive success? If a model is internally consistent, then it correctly describes some possible world. One view of good social scientific models is that, even though they do not correctly describe our world (perhaps due to intrinsic complexities in our world), they correctly describe very similar (but much simpler) worlds. The natural sciences take this approach from time to time. Consider the ideal gas law—no one seriously believes that any gas in our world is ideal in the relevant sense, but most chemists believe that the world of ideal gases is very similar to our world. Social scientists may defend a model, knowing that it is not strictly correct in every particular, by insisting that the world of the model is so similar to reality that the model is still of great scientific value.

One problem with this defense is that the ideal gas law, like other successful natural scientific theories, makes very, very good predictions. Such successful predictions are very few and far between in the social sciences. If social scientists want to persuade others of the similarities between the worlds of their models and the real world, predictive success has to be the centerpiece of their argument.

A second, perhaps more serious problem with this defense is that social scientific models frequently incorporate ideas that we not only know to be false, strictly speaking, but also know to be not even approximately true. In rational choice models of human decision-making, for example, it is supposed that humans have complete, transitive preferences over their options. We know this is not true—indeed, we know this is not even approximately true.  Yet it continues to maintain a remarkable presence in many prominent social scientific models. Examples of this kind severely undermine the case outlined above for garden variety models in the social sciences.

If social scientific models do not qualify as successful scientific descriptions of our world—indeed, not even approximately true abstractions—then what ought we to make of them? The key to understanding social scientific models, in my view, is to recognize that many phenomena of interest need not occur only in our world, or only in very similar worlds. It is conceivable, for example, that recessions much like the ones that take place from time to time in our world take place from time to time in other, very different worlds. Some of these worlds may be much simpler than the real world, in that they obey only a handful of basic laws. Studying the properties and behavior of recessions in these worlds is more feasible than doing so in the real world, in which they co-occur with countless other complicating factors, even if these worlds have little else in common with the real world.

The challenge with investigating recessions in very different worlds is that features of recessions in those worlds may not carry over to the real world. These features may be intricately linked with the world in which they’re embedded, a world very different from our own. This is why robustness is important in such investigations. If we study a range of worlds that differ from each other along many of the same dimensions along which they each differ from the real world, then we may conclude that robust features of the phenomena being studied can conceivably carry over to our world, even if every world we study happens to be very much unlike our world.

As social scientists produce many such characterizations of phenomena of interest, each of which has properties and behaviors that do not necessarily depend upon the idiosyncrasies of the worlds in which they’re being studied, these characterizations may be compared with respect to their likeness to real world phenomena. The closer the match, the more compelling the characterization—though short of meeting ordinary scientific standards of predictive success, these characterizations need not enjoy the epistemic credentials of established physics, chemistry, etc.

On this understanding of social scientific models, it makes sense to separate two distinct kinds of debate. The first concerns the extent to which the account of phenomena embedded in the model corresponds to reality. The second concerns the extent to which the world of the model is a suitable environment in which to study the phenomena of interest. Note that this does not include debating the extent to which the world of the model corresponds to reality. The greater the extent to which this is the case, the better (of course), but the cost of this is typically greater analytical complexity. In light of this, it seems appropriate for some researchers to err on one side of this tradeoff, while the rest err on the other side.

This may not be the only way to do good social scientific research. This may not even be the best way to do social scientific research. It is, however, one way—one that is practiced much more often than other ways in some social sciences (e.g., economics), while playing a more minor role in others (e.g., cognitive psychology). In the end, I’m a pluralist. No one way of conducting social scientific inquiry has proven its worth to such a degree that other ways must be swept into the dustbin of history. The ‘model phenomena realistically, albeit in unrealistic settings’ method, if you will, has its limitations, to be sure, for which it ought to be criticized, if only to keep researchers’ eye on the prize, but it has something intellectually valuable to offer, too. Proponents of this approach do not consistently practice what they preach—this, too, ought to be extensively criticized—but when they do, they frequently yield novel perspectives on challenging problems, insights into which are always welcome, however they may be found.

A defense of the efficient market hypothesis

The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) was once a widely believed theory in financial economics (see, for example, “Efficient Capital Markets” [Fama 1970]). The EMH states, informally, that financial market prices fully reflect publicly available information concerning the underlying value of the traded security. As expressed, the EMH gives rise to a joint-hypothesis problem: when directly determining whether a given financial market is pricing securities efficiently, one must suppose a particular model of underlying value. Should the EMH, coupled with such a model, fail the test, one is (logically) free to revise the pricing model without rejecting EMH.

Consequently, the EMH itself is usually tested in one of three ways: (1) ‘weak form’ tests explore whether one can consistently outperform the market as a whole by studying patterns in past price movements (i.e., whether technical analysis is a loser’s game in the long run); (2) ‘semi-strong form’ tests explore whether one can consistently outperform the market as a whole by studying publicly available information (i.e., whether fundamental analysis, too, is a loser’s game in the long run); (3) ‘strong form’ tests explore whether one can consistently outperform the market as a whole by having access to information that is only privately available (i.e., whether even insider trading is a loser’s game in the long run). Consistently outperforming the market is a challenge for the EMH, because the EMH implies that, going forward, price movements constitute a random walk, meaning that the limiting probability of consistently earning excess returns is precisely zero.

Why does the EMH imply that future price movements conform to a random walk? If the price of a security fully reflects publicly available information, then the only cause of future price movements is genuine news, which is by its very nature unpredictable. Hence, movements in future prices cannot be predicted, meaning that trading is purely a game of chance. It is certainly possible to win games of chance a large number of times (consider Warren Buffett’s career, for example), but the larger the number of games, the less likely consistent winning becomes.

Most proponents of EMH concede the observation of Grossman & Stiglitz [1980] that, if markets were efficient, it would not make sense for traders to sort through the news, thereby depriving markets of information needed to price securities efficiently. Thus, markets may well be efficient enough to deny traders much in the way of excess returns, but must be inefficient enough to continue to encourage informed trading.

The EMH near-consensus was supported by a large number of empirical studies showing that weak form, and many semi-strong form, tests of EMH conformed to the theory’s predictions (the track record of strong form tests is considerably more mixed). The consensus began to unravel when a number of criticisms from the behavioral finance school emerged, coupled with the increasing conviction of some econometricians that price movements may indeed be predictable. More recently, the EMH has faced a great deal of public criticism pertaining to its purported role in the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Many of these criticisms seem to me to be based upon some key confusions:

First, efficiency is a separate issue from stability. The fact that prices may run up, then suddenly fall off a cliff, does not necessarily condemn efficiency. Suppose, for example, that based upon the best information, housing seems to be a really good investment (perhaps because of a wave of immigration). Later, unexpectedly, compelling evidence to the contrary emerges (immigration seems to be slowing for whatever reason). Prices would rise sharply, then fall sharply, but there is nothing inefficient about this. It is just that, for a time, it was reasonable to believe housing to be a great investment, but this is no longer a reasonable belief. Instability is not necessarily evidence of inefficiency.

Second, efficiency does not imply perfect foresight. The claim of the EMH is that markets efficiently price securities based upon publicly available information, not that it prices securities based upon presently unknown considerations. The future is, to a very large extent, unpredictable. Expecting markets to get it right every time is folly.

Third, efficiency is a separate issue from rationality. Suppose a deeply irrational trader enters the market. His transactions cause a number of securities to become temporarily mispriced (with respect to efficiency). The consequence of this, however, is that rational traders now enjoy opportunities for arbitrage. Their efforts to profit off of this irrational trader will, in very short order, correct the mispricing. Thus, it is possible for many traders to be irrational, but for the market to still be efficient, so long as there are enough rational traders.

As for price trends, I will believe it when I see it. If you stare hard enough at any large data series, you will observe patterns therein. This does not mean, however, that you can reliably predict future price movements on the basis of past movements. If you can, then you can also profit off of those predictions. Where is the evidence of consistent excess returns derived from price trends? Show me the profit!

In my view, the EMH, like any good social scientific model, is a useful approximation for the purposes to which it is put, even if it is not precisely true. Assuming the EMH, we may infer from financial market prices what sorts of (rational) expectations traders have about future developments of interest. We may also explain why sticking with low-cost index funds makes more sense for casual investing purposes than turning one’s money over to expensive, actively managed funds. EMH may have this or that hole, but no alternative theory of financial market pricing gives us a useful interpretation of the relevant prices. Most importantly, no competitor theory can explain the most striking fact in finance: consistent excess returns are extremely, extremely hard to come by, in spite of some of the best and brightest working their very hardest using the most sophisticated tools to find them.

Productivity: a primer

‘Productivity’ refers to the economic output produced by a unit of labor. Why does productivity matter? Suppose productivity is fixed. In order for the economy to produce more output, it must utilize more labor. More output means more income, which increases the quality of people’s leisure time. More labor, however, decreases the quantity of people’s leisure time. Hence, fixed productivity forces workers to choose between a higher quantity of lower quality leisure time, and a lower quantity of higher quality leisure time.

Greater productivity makes choosing between these two options unnecessary. Workers can increase the quantity, or the quality, of their leisure time without sacrificing the other. It’s a win-win…

…for the more productive workers. Where, though, does the added productivity come from? Productivity growth comes from capital accumulation. Capital, in turn, comes from saving–i.e., not consuming. Even though productivity growth is good for the workers whose productivity has grown, it requires sacrifice to bring it about. Some of that sacrifice may come from others (e.g., someone makes a bunch of money, invests it in equities, the purchased companies buy more powerful computers, making their workers more productive). Some of it may come from the worker himself (e.g, someone turns down opportunities to make money in order to go to school, enriching his human capital, making him more productive). But there is always sacrifice involved in bringing about greater productivity.

Productivity, too, therefore, is a matter of choice. Present-oriented people much prefer consumption today to consumption in the future, so choose to save less. This reduces the capital stock, slowing productivity growth, the consequence of which is a difficult tradeoff between the quantity and quality of future leisure. Future-oriented people have a more balanced perspective, so choose to save more. This increases the capital stock, accelerating productivity growth, the consequence of which is a (comparatively) easy tradeoff between the quantity and quality of future leisure.

Of course, it is more than mere choice that matters for productivity. Institutions and public policies, for one, matter immensely. But given a set of institutions and public policies, variations in productivity is largely reflected in variations in the discount rates people apply towards the future.

Market interest rates in the US have been historically low for quite some time now. Even long-term bonds, such as the 30-year US Treaury bond, are yielding extraordinarily low returns. What does this say about future productivity, and more importantly future living standards? To me, it says that people want to sacrifice now to a historic extent for the sake of a more prosperous future, which tells me people think the future is currently looking very dim indeed. When interest rates begin to rise to more historically normal levels, this will be because people have become more optimistic about the outlook for the US economy.

To be clear, I’m not calling for the Fed to raise interest rates. Interest rates are not extraordinarily low because the Fed wants them to be, but rather because the Fed has to follow the market’s lead in order to do its job of macroeconomic stabilization. The Fed is keeping rates low because people are pessimistic–not the other way around. The solution is to make people more optimistic about the future. In the near term, that’s mostly about stimulating demand/NGDP, but over longer horizons, the US needs to do something about what it appears to be headed for: a prolonged period of productivity stasis.

Why does the individual mandate matter?

Two of the central planks of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) go by the names of ‘guaranteed issue’ and ‘community rating’. According to guaranteed issue, no health insurance company is permitted to deny someone coverage based upon a pre-existing condition. According to community rating, insurance companies must offer the same policies to everyone for the same price. The idea is that health status is largely something beyond anyone’s control, and so it is unfair for those who, through no fault of their own, suffer ill health to have to pay a price for it. Whatever you think of the merits of these ideas, they’re embedded (in spirit, despite lots of exceptions) in the PPACA.

The worry, in theory, is that many people will wait till they develop a pre-existing condition to get coverage, saving premium expenses in the meantime. The reason is if they do so, they will not have to worry about being denied coverage because of guaranteed issue, and they will pay the same price then whether they buy it now or not. If people in fact do this, insurance companies will only have relatively sick people on their rolls, forcing them to raise premiums to cover the cost of their claims. Higher premiums, in turn, will encourage the relatively healthy among the insured to forgo insurance, rendering the pool still sicker, driving up premiums more. And so on and so forth.

This problem is known as ‘adverse selection’. The ultimate outcome, in principle, is that the price of insurance will spiral upwards until it is no longer a profitable business, causing a disappearance of the market. This has not happened in any of the states that have guaranteed issue and community rating policies, but it has been shown that their premiums rise faster than in states without those policies. What we can expect, then, is that they will quickly and sharply drive up the cost of health insurance.

The purpose of requiring everyone to buy health insurance is to prevent this spiral from getting off the ground. If everyone has insurance, no one can forgo it until they get sick, making adverse selection a non-issue. Arguably, there are other reasons to be wary of such a mandate, but most experts agree it is essential if community rating and guaranteed issue are to work without causing premiums to explode. If the Supreme Court rules the mandate unconstitutional, leaving these other pieces in place, the PPACA is going to cause a lot of problems no one particularly intended.This is why they may choose to eliminate guaranteed issue and community rating, too, in which case the core of the bill will be withdrawn.

I’m not a lawyer, but for what it’s worth, the mandate isn’t that big a deal. Suppose that the government decided to tax every citizen, to pay for a ‘motherhood and apple pie fund’. They then also decide that they’re going to cut a check of the same size to everyone who has health insurance. Nobody would dispute the constitutionality of either of those measures in the slightest, and yet together they amount to a fine for those who do not have health insurance. The only difference is that this is called a ‘tax’, while the mandate’s fee is a ‘penalty’. Note that the penalty is collected by the IRS, and you cannot go to jail for refusing to pay it. Sounds like a distinction without a difference to me.

Legal opponents raise the question of what limits there are on the government if it can require you to buy something. This, to me, is pretty silly. It isn’t requiring you to do anything. It’s just using the word ‘require’ to stigmatize those who choose not to get health insurance, making them feel like outlaws. It also asks them to pay a fine for doing so. The government isn’t coming into anyone’s home, insisting that they buy health insurance at the point of a gun. They’re just making your life a bit more difficult if you don’t get health insurance. Welcome to society. Sometimes the government has to make certain things more of a headache for the sake of promoting the general welfare. PPACA may or may not promote the general welfare, but saying that the government can’t give you a headache for making certain decisions is to say that the government cannot affirmatively try to solve any social problems at all. If you don’t like the PPACA, try to elect some folks who will get rid of it. Don’t try to make it impossible for the government to solve large social problems going forward.

How to fix the criminal justice system

Suppose you’ve imposed a (non-trivial) burden upon someone else without their consent. What is the right course for society to take in response? One option is to force you to fully compensate your victim. Requiring sufficient compensation would completely transfer the cost you’ve imposed upon the rest of society back to you. Knowing this ex ante, your individual cost-benefit calculation becomes identical to society’s cost-benefit calculation, for you expect not only to enjoy every social benefit, but also to suffer every social cost, flowing from your decision.

What ought to happen, then, if you do not have the funds to fully compensate your victim? The government may well seize your physical assets, selling what they can to make up for the shortfall. If even that is not enough to repay your debt to society, the government may have to take ownership of a more intimate asset: you. As with a bankrupt firm, the government may lend you the money you require to fully compensate your victim in a timely manner, but must take temporary ownership of you while you repay your debt in exchange. You would, in effect, be offering to collateralize such a risky loan with the only valuable you have left: your future stream of income.

Here’s my proposal: when a crime is committed (ignoring so-called victimless crimes for the time being), the government produces a transparent, predictable estimate of the crime’s social cost. If the criminal is able to fully pay the price, possibly by liquidating her portfolio, she may do so. If she is not able to pay the price, she goes to prison. Instead of serving a prison term, however, her mandate is to pay down her debt to society in full. In prison, she can produce whatever goods and services it is feasible for her to produce in that setting, which the government will sell to the general public, collecting most of the proceeds. With her small share of the proceeds, she may purchase a better standard of living in prison, or she may contribute extra funds towards paying down her debt, thereby shortening her stay in prison.

The signal such a policy would send is clear: if you commit a crime, be prepared to pay the price. If you’re not so prepared, you will be partially enslaved by the government (i.e., the government will have a controlling equity stake in you) until you have paid the price. Moreover, the higher the quantity and quality of the goods and services you produce for the general public’s consumption, the better your standard of living in prison, the sooner you exit prison, or perhaps both. Your incentive before you commit the crime is to carry out society’s cost-benefit calculation for yourself, and even if you go through with it, your incentive is to be as productive as possible for the benefit of your society, much as it would be outside of prison. Fewer people would be in prison, most would have shorter and less miserable stays, and much less human capital would be wasting away behind bars. All while reducing crime rates. What’s not to love (besides the optics of slavery 2.0…)?

The results

Compare with my predictions…

Washington–Romney, Paul, Santorum, Gingrich (67% correct)

Alaska–TBD
Georgia–Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Paul (100% correct)
Idaho–Romney, Paul, Santorum, Gingrich (100% correct)
Massachusetts–Romney, Santorum, Paul, Gingrich (100% correct)
North Dakota–Santorum, Paul, Romney, Gingrich (83% correct)
Ohio–Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul (100% correct)
Oklahoma–Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, Paul (83% correct)
Tennessee–Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, Paul (100% correct)
Vermont–Romney, Paul, Santorum, Gingrich (83% correct)
Virginia–Romney, Paul (100% correct)

That’s 92% correct overall. If you just count Super Tuesday states, I was 94% correct. A/A- seems fair.

Note also that these contests could’ve played out in one of over 2.6 trillion different ways. Come on…fives.

Super Tuesday Forecast

I issued private forecasts for Arizona and Michigan, but forgot to post them on the blog. Needless to say, I nailed both. Now, onto Super Tuesday…but first, Washington (on March 3rd): Santorum, Romney, Paul, Gingrich

Super Tuesday contests (on March 6th)
—————————————————————-
Alaska: Romney, Paul, Santorum, Gingrich
Georgia: Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Paul
Idaho: Romney, Paul, Santorum, Gingrich
Massachusetts: Romney, Santorum, Paul, Gingrich
North Dakota: Santorum, Romney, Paul, Gingrich
Ohio: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul
Oklahoma: Santorum, Gingrich, Romney, Paul
Tennessee: Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, Paul
Vermont: Romney, Santorum, Paul, Gingrich
Virginia: Romney, Paul

Enjoy.

The contraception mandate and you: the religious debate

President Obama has gotten more than he bargained for with the fire fight he is facing with religious groups over a mandate that even religious organizations include birth control as part of their insurance coverage. What was originally framed as a step in the right direction for woman’s rights and universal healthcare quickly turned into a constitutional debate over the president’s ability to force specific coverage onto everyone, including religious groups.

The president’s so called ‘accommodation’ was nothing but a shell game: the mandate still requires religious organizations to subsidize and authorize conduct that conflicts with their religious principles. The very first amendment to our Constitution was intended to protect against this sort of government intrusion into our religious convictions. (Texas Attorney General)

The Texas Attorney General’s argument is weak at best and I call into question his understanding of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The mandate is not directed at religious groups, but rather the insurance companies themselves. Are religious groups affected? Sure they are but then again they are also part of the greater population so any decision that applies to the United States as a whole affects them. Greg Abbott, as are religious groups, are linking the idea that insurance companies offering contraception methods as part of insurance plans somehow “authorize(s) conduct that conflicts with their religious principles” but I beg to differ. Something like 42% of women use contraception methods for something other than preventing pregnancies (the real reason religious groups are up in arms) – let’s just ignore that for the time being since the religious groups are.

Let’s take a tangent real quick before we continue and look at my experiences with sex and religion. I was raised a Catholic. Went to Catholic school for 10 years of my life and have a pretty good understanding of the mindset utilized by similar groups. Since sex education was a required thing growing up, we were taught three basic ideas:

1. Only way to not get pregnant is to not have sex. Actually was told numerous time:  “the use of any contraceptive is a sin”
2. You need to wait until you’re married to have sex
3. If you have sex with more than one person, you will get a STD for life

Pretty grim stuff if you ask me, but the reality was that it was only part of the truth. If you read into these ideas a little, you sense a fear factor rather than that of love and compassion. Why is that? Why was the church pushing a harsher reality onto students in their early years? Plain and simple – they have always done it. My interpretation of the church is that if the general public were left to their own devices, morality would not exist and the integrity of people would be that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Since the church has little physical influence over the personal lives of their employees (free will), another avenue of control is required – making birth control somewhat fiscally out of reach through not providing it in insurance plans. You won’t find any studies published on the cold, hard number of people who classify themselves as religious and their use of contraceptives but I’ll go out on a limb and say that more than 80% of married couples practice it in some form.

I’m going to pull the religious card here. I was always taught that people are tested while here on earth but every decision was yours, including the decision to sin or not follow the church. How is the abstinence from contraceptives offered by an insurance company any different? The answer is it’s not.

Enough tangent, back to the argument. Religious groups can harp all day on moral issues of offering birth control as part of their insurance plans but the reality that they do not want to face is that, regardless of it being available in the insurance plan, their congregation would still practice contraception methods in some form. The other side of the argument, that some how they are subsidizing the use of contraceptives is totally crazy. The mandate specifically says that rates will not go up as a result of this. Let’s look at the insurance company for a minute because this is the best thing that could have happened for them. The insurance costs of raising a child are enormous compared to providing birth control so it’s a win-win for them.

Obama is not shoving contraception down the throats of everyone but merely making it financially available to everyone. That’s it. It’s the person’s decision to take it or not. Because it is a free will decision, arguing that this mandate violates the First Amendment is absurd. Now if it was “crazy religious fanatics are required to take birth control every day” then you have something, but merely making something available to the greater public and arguing it violates your rights? Give me a break.

Banking, in a nutshell

What do banks do? Two things. First, they maintain their customers’ deposits, paying interest on them for the privilege. Second, they lend some of their customers’ funds to creditworthy borrowers, charging them interest for the privilege. Banks make money, in brief, by taking a bit off of the top when transferring interest payments from their debtors to their depositors.

What is the economic value of what banks do? Banks perform the important tasks of liquidity & maturity transformation. In so doing, they play the role of financial intermediaries–institutions that match savers with borrowers, facilitating investment. Investment, in turn, is a critical driver of economic growth.

A depositor, in general, wants to invest in a short-term, highly liquid vehicle. That is, she wants to be able to, on a moment’s notice (short maturity), convert her investment into cash (high liquidity). A bank deposit offers her just that. As long as her savings reside in the bank they yield her interest. Whenever she wishes, however, she may make a withdrawal, converting her investment into cash without warning.

A borrower, in general, wants to provide a long-term, illiquid vehicle. That is, he wants to be able to spend his borrowed funds over a long period of time (long maturity), without necessarily being able to convert his purchases into cash in the interim (illiquidity). For example, if he borrows from the bank to buy a house, he may not be able to fully pay off his mortgage until it matures (say, thirty years from now), because his stream of income prevents this. A bank loan offer him exactly what he wants. As long as he makes his payments on time, he need not fully pay for his purchases until his loan matures, which may be well into the future.

How do banks manage to match depositors with borrowers, then, given their divergent wants? They manage to do this thanks to the law of large numbers. The withdrawal behavior of each depositor is very unpredictable. Because the behavior of one depositor is independent of the behavior of others, however, the law of large numbers entails that the withdrawal behavior of many depositors is very predictable. A bank that enjoys a large number of customers may confidently predict aggregate withdrawals on a given day, even if it cannot predict how much each customer withdraws. As a consequence, banks keep just enough cash in their vaults (their reserves) to honor these predictable withdrawals, freeing up the remaining funds to be invested with long-term, illiquid borrowers. Banks, therefore, make possible productive investments that would otherwise not be possible, thereby contributing to economic growth.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? There is, indeed a catch: Exploiting the law of large numbers is only possible because, most of the time, the behavior of one depositor is independent of the behavior of others. If withdrawals become correlated, the business model of banking breaks down. Suppose, for illustration, that a bank invests heavily in one sector of the economy (e.g., housing), believing that this promises the highest risk-adjusted returns for its depositors. Suppose further that many of these investments go belly up, with large numbers of borrowers defaulting on their loans. A depositor, observing this, worries about the ability of her bank to make good on her future withdrawals. Moreover, she knows that if she is worried about this, other depositors must be similarly worried. Even if the bank is in fact solvent, it is never in a position to make good on every deposit simultaneously, for some of the funds have been invested. Knowing that others will make larger-than-usual withdrawals, fearing that the bank is insolvent, it is in her best interest to beat them to it. If she isn’t one of the first to get her money out of the bank, the bank may not be able to honor her deposits, even if it was solvent in the first place.

A banking panic (or bank run) is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fears concerning a bank’s solvency trigger correlated withdrawals, rendering the bank insolvent regardless of its prior condition. Systemic banking panics occur for similar reasons. If many banks turn out to have exposure to lots of bad loans, uninformed depositors may play it safe, running on their bank regardless of its individual exposure. This pushes the entire banking system into insolvency, causing a complete breakdown of financial intermediation in the economy, severely undermining economic growth.

Most economists, therefore, believe it is part of the role of government to stem banking panics, but not to make every failing financial institution whole. It is also important to regulate banking, because if banks can count on the government to bail them out in a panic, that limits their downside, encouraging them to take excessive risks with their depositors’ funds. The best way to do these things, however, is a matter of considerable debate. With the introduction of deposit insurance, depositors no longer monitor commercial bank’s investments, which is why the government tightly regulates them (for better or for worse). In the recent financial crisis, there were runs on so-called ‘shadow banks’, which work similarly to commercial banks, but operate outside of ordinary bank regulations.

The most important lessons, going forward: (1) preserve the banking system, not individual banks; (2) preserve institutions–preserve neither the management, nor the shareholders; (3) the purpose of regulation is to force bankers to put their own money on the line, not just the taxpayer’s–otherwise, keep it simple. The US definitely erred too much on the side of caution in ’08-’09, for which it may be rightly criticized, but it is safe to say swinging too far in the other direction may have done even more damage to the economy. Pick your poison.

Fixing the corporate income tax

First, businesses only ought to report their revenue from sales. Second, they should deduct purchases from other businesses. Third, they must also deduct labor expenses (wages & benefits). On the difference, they ought to be taxed at a flat rate. No further deductions, credits, etc. Simple.

‘Closing loopholes’ sounds good, but the devil is in the details. If it is code for taxing purchases from other businesses, for example, then these may not be loopholes worth closing. Also remember that means-testing raises marginal tax rates. If you want to close loopholes, close them for everyone, not just big businesses.

Finally, note that corporate income tax reform has little or nothing to do with stimulating the economy in the short run. By contrast, it has everything to do with long-run economic growth, the state of the government’s finances, and the distribution of wealth in society. So judge proposals on those terms.

Drugs to make you sick

Here is a gem I came across while reading an article on the FDA reviewing caffeine:

This is so ridiculous.  I suppose the manufacturers of this product greased the palms of the FDA but good.  How about a cure for Diabetes and Cancer?  There are thousands of young scientists doing just that but they can’t get into clinical trials because they don’t have the funding– but some quack produces THIS and it gets considered and will only be recalled when a few hundred die from it.  The FDA has one thing in mind — Money, and if you have it, they will allow it, hence all the bogus pharmaceuticals designed to keep you or make you sick.  What a world. (CNN.com)

I appreciate alternative views on society but this comment is second to none, well except maybe people that think the gold standard is a good idea, and really show the lack of education on the matter. Being sort of an expert on all things pharma, I can only laugh at what this person has to say and want to educate others which may fall into this same mindset. Queue National Geographic intro music…

First off, of the costs associated with bringing a drug to market only a small percentage ever hits the books of the FDA. Your average drug development costs are on the order of $1 billion once you factor in four rounds of clinical trials compared to the ~$1.2 million associated with a full drug application (roughly .001% of the costs). If you’ve ever seen a drug application (I’ll just assume you haven’t), you’d know that they basically cut down a small forest to print out a hard copy with all the clinical data. The FDA needs a small army of people to review all the data and ensure that the drug company followed industry standards – all people that are paid. Let’s also not forget that just because the company pays the application fee, that the drug is approved. Use your favorite search engine and look for “fda rejections” for a little bit of fun. The FDA is meant to provide reasonable oversight to drugs and devices marketed to the greater public – without them, we’d literally have snake oil being sold as the cure for cancer…

What about a cure for cancer and diabetes? Between these two classes of diseases, billions of dollars are spent in basic research at universities and an unimaginable amount at both big and small pharma. Any time a viable treatment option is found or new potentially viable compound is discovered/created, money is thrown at it. Venture capital goons love throwing their money at these wonder compounds because their few million dollar gamble now could be worth billions in drug sales in the future – sort of like hitting the lottery.  Heck, even universities will spin off commercial entities to bring a drug to market just for a cut of the licensing fees. I have a hard time believing that there are scientist sitting out there with viable compounds or revolutionary treatment having a hard time finding funding – there is just too much money to be made to risk not looking into it further.

It’s the perfect business model: drug companies create drugs that keep you sick so they are able to turn a greater profit off of your warm body, eventually killing you in the long run. If people were not sick in the first place, drug companies would not exist. Ok, so you got sick and now you’re taking a drug – if you stayed sick or got sicker while taking a drug, wouldn’t you stop taking it? I know if I took a drug for my acne and required Chipotle Away in response to a nasty side effect I’d stop taking it. How bout those fun-loving side effects caused by chemo therapy? No one said drug development or treatments were perfect – far from it actually. Drugs and treatments are rated and compared by their statistical likely hood of being effective at treating your symptoms while at the same time weighing the risks of the side effects. Except for twins or the like, the effect a given drug or treatment has on an individual can vary greatly so the expectation of a wonder drug with no side effects, curing your ailment is absurd unless you talk about custom tailored drugs, currently cost prohibitive. Sick people can’t work – people that can’t work can’t pay for prescription drugs, even with Obamacare.

Drug companies are around not because they are money hoarding, evil entities looking to steal your money, soul, and wife but because they improve the quality of life in a statistical sense. Sure some guy might die from a heart attack that might have been caused by a drug or you might be covered in teal polka dots for the rest of your life but if it improves the quality of life for a statistically significant population what’s the big deal? The person knew the risks of taking the drug in the first place (except in cases of shoddy clinical trials but that’s a topic for another day) and valued the potential life without the ailment more than the statistical likelihood of any of the side effects.Case closed, no conspiracy, no cover up.

To the person that wrote the quotation above, next time you get sick don’t take any drugs or antibiotics and see how well you feel and how fast you recover.

Supply-side economics, for babies

Suppose you’re deciding how much gas to purchase. The gas station charges $x per gallon, but you also have to pay a gas tax of $y per gallon. The effective price of gas for you, then, is $(x+y) per gallon.

Suppose first that y = 0.25. In that case, let’s say you want to buy 10 gallons. Now suppose that y = 0.75. Do you still want to buy 10 gallons? Those same 10 gallons would cost you $5 extra. Even if that isn’t enough to make you want to buy a little less gas, it’s plausible that someone out there is going to buy fewer gallons than they otherwise would, right?

How will the change in y impact the government’s income? On the one hand, y goes up, which means every gallon purchased adds $0.50 more to the government’s income. On the other hand, the gallons of gas purchased probably go down, which means every gallon not purchased deducts $0.25 from the government’s income. If the former effect dominates, then the government’s income rises with the tax hike. If the latter effect dominates, then the government’s income falls with the tax hike.

Suppose you’re deciding how many hours to work. Your employer pays you $x per hour, but you also have to pay a tax of y% on your wages. Your effective wage, therefore, is $x(1 – y/100) per hour.

Suppose first that y = 0.25. In that case, let’s say you want to work 40 hours. Now suppose that y = 0.75. Do you still want to work 40 hours? Those same 40 hours would earn you only half as much. Even if that isn’t enough to make you work less, it’s plausible that someone out there is going to work fewer hours than they otherwise would, right?

How will the change in y impact the government’s income? On the one hand, y goes up, which means every hour worked secures the government more income. On the other hand, hours worked probably go down, which means every hour not worked loses the government more income. If the former effect dominates, then the government’s income rises with the tax hike. If the latter effect dominates, then the government’s income falls with the tax hike.

What’s the difference? Well, if the price of gas goes up, you become poorer, which makes you buy fewer things in general (and gas in particular). If the price of work goes up, you still become poorer, but that makes you work more hours to make up the difference. Thus, there is a third effect, which reinforces the revenue-reducing aspect of the gas tax, but reinforces the revenue-raising aspect of the wage tax. Common sense suggests, therefore, wage tax hikes are likely to be more successful in raising revenues than gas tax hikes.

What do the data tell us? Higher income taxes unambiguously raise more revenue, but some expected revenue is lost because some people do not generate (or report) as much income. In other words, the supply-siders had a point, but one that was way overblown. So when peeps tell you cutting taxes raises revenue, understand that there are multiple things going on, and that we have pretty solid evidence that other, more intuitive effects, tend to dominate in the end. Doesn’t mean higher tax rates are desirable, but they would raise more revenue–possibly a lot more.

NGDP targeting, for beginners

What is nominal gross domestic product (NGDP)? It is, in principle, the level of money expenditures on the economy’s output. If you buy a good produced by the economy for the price of $x, then you raise NGDP by exactly $x. Of course, the government does not track every money expenditure, but it estimates NGDP based upon various inputs.

What determines NGDP? In a word (really three words): the central bank. Why? The central bank is the monopoly producer of money (defined here to be paper notes and coins). It is legally permitted to produce however much money it sees fit to produce. Moreover, money’s cost of production is nearly zero. Consequently, the central bank is in complete control of the money supply.

At any point in time, the public only wants to hold onto so much money (its money demand). The rest it wants to spend or invest (free up for others to spend). If the central bank provides more money than the public wants to hold onto, putting it in the public’s hands by purchasing assets from them, then the public will spend the excess money, raising NGDP. If the central bank provides less money than the public wants to hold onto, removing it from the public’s hands by selling assets back to them, then the public will cut back spending, lowering NGDP. Because the central bank determines the money supply, it by extension determines the level of money expenditures, or NGDP.

There is one exception to this relationship. Consider a case in which the quantity of money the public wants to hold onto becomes entangled with the quantity of money the central bank provides. To be more specific, suppose that every time the central bank expands the money supply by $x, the public’s demand for money expands by $x, too. This situation is called a ‘liquidity trap’. If the central bank tries to raise NGDP by expanding the money supply, it will fail to do so no matter how much money it creates.

The only way to raise NGDP in a liquidity trap is to contract the public’s demand for money. The way to do this is to make holding onto money less appealing. How is the central bank supposed to do that? Liquidity traps do not last forever. Once the economy exits a liquidity trap, money demand becomes disentangled from the money supply. At that point, if the central bank expands the money supply, then the value of money will fall (the value of money equilibrates money demand with money supply). If the central bank credibly promises to do just that when the time comes, the public will expect the money they hold onto to decline in value. This makes holding onto money less appealing. The less money the public holds onto, the more it spends, raising NGDP.

Thus, by managing not only the contemporary money supply, but also expectations concerning the future money supply, the central bank is always the determinant of NGDP. Why, though, does NGDP matter?

Everyone’s expenditure is someone else’s sale. NGDP, therefore, also measures the economy’s money-denominated output. Let P be the price level, the price of a typical good or service. Let Y be real output, the quantity of typical goods and services the economy produces. It follows from the preceding observations that NGDP = P*Y. Many economists posit sticky prices–that is, they believe that many prices adjust only sluggishly to various kinds of shocks. Price stickiness implies that P moves slowly in response to NGDP shocks. As a consequence, shocks to NGDP induce shocks to Y, or real gross domestic product (RGDP):

Monetary (NGDP) shocks have real (RGDP) effects. RGDP, or Y, is the economy’s real output. Producing lower levels of real output does not require employing so many inputs–e.g., labor:

Monetary (NGDP) shocks drive the business cycle. Stable NGDP growth minimizes shocks to RGDP, smoothing the business cycle. In contrast, sudden, deep contractions in NGDP cause severe recessions:

At any point in time, there is only so much real output the economy can produce. Too fast NGDP growth maxes out Y, necessitating rapid growth in P–that is, inflation:

Stable, moderate NGDP growth maximizes employment while keeping prices stable, fulfilling the dual mandate of monetary policy. Targeting stable, moderate NGDP growth, therefore, is usually the best course for monetary policy. What, then, is the prescription for lowering the unemployment rate in the US, which has been experiencing slow NGDP growth? More money => more NGDP => more employment?

Looks like more money isn’t doing the trick. Looks, therefore, like we’re in a liquidity trap–the solution to which is the management of expectations concerning the future money supply. Suppose that, instead of targeting stable, moderate NGDP growth, the central bank targets a stable, moderately rising trajectory (or path) for NGDP. Under normal circumstances, the two policies work more or less similarly. The difference is that the former policy is forgiving of past failures, while the latter never forgets.

If, because of a liquidity trap, the central bank fails to keep NGDP growing at the usual rate, the former policy will continue to strive for NGDP growth at the usual rate once the liquidity trap is behind us. The latter policy, by contrast, will strive for faster than usual NGDP growth in order to catch up to the targeted path. Faster NGDP growth will require a bigger than expected money supply, post-liquidity trap. Thus, if the central bank targets a stable, moderately rising trajectory for NGDP, then encountering a liquidity trap automatically commits it to a bigger than expected future money supply (the longer the trap lasts, the bigger the commitment), which is precisely what our earlier discussion of liquidity traps called for.

Suppose that the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, promises to do everything in its power to restore NGDP to its pre-crisis trend line (see the third figure above). Since we’re in a liquidity trap, this commits it to expanding the future money supply until NGDP makes a full, speedy recovery, but to do no more than that. Doing so would cause the public to expect the value of their money to decline over time, discouraging them from holding onto so much of it, thereby stimulating NGDP right now. And more NGDP, given sticky prices, would increase employment right now. The way to reduce the unemployment rate in the US, therefore, is for the Federal Reserve to target a stable, moderately rising trajectory for NGDP–in particular, to promise to continue NGDP’s pre-crisis trajectory in a timely manner. Welcome, friends, to NGDP targeting.