Tires, Nobel Prize, macro debates, and solar cells.

Garth Brazelton defends the tire tax as a Pigouvian tax. I'd be interested to see if there was any data to show that Chinese tires are significantly less safe than American tires. Since they both presumably have to meet some sort of standard, should we just make tougher standards? If Chinese tires are less safe than American tires, would the tax not apply to safe Chinese tires, or would the tax be repealed when Chinese tire makers improved their tires?

Tyler Cowen starts thinking about the Nobel Prize for Economics. I'm eager to see everyone's thoughts.

Krugman talks about freshwater economists while David Warsh says there isn't as much vitriol as we might think. Warsh links us to an interesting paper that thinks about 1978 macro (link to Thoma).

Solar energy is apparently getting off to a slow start. Overinvestment due to a subsidy combined with a recession led to dropping prices, whic wasn't good for the industry. Does that mean we'll see solar energy picking up again as the world recovers? I've been seeing more articles about solar-powered things anyways, so maybe China is picking up a large degree of the slack from Spain.

Solar power, education, inflation, and majors

China is really pushing the production of solar panels. Siemens has also invested a lot of money into solar power recently. I've heard people say that oil prices will only go up in the long term, but I wonder if energy prices will actually go down.

Some people talk about why the price of upper education has risen.

As the economy bottoms out, we look more towards inflation. With slow growth, I don't expect inflation to get out of control, though even if that were the case it seems to be a necessary condition for growth in this recovery period.

College students fret about their majors. I thought this has always been a problem for them, especially for liberal arts people.

Subprime mortgages, the end of the recession, FDI, and health care

The Cleveland Fed presents us with ten myths about subprime mortgages.

Mark Thoma tells us when we'll know that the recession is over. I think there are two important themes: 1) it's tough to tell, and 2) it'll be pretty obvious when it's there.

Foreign investment in long-term US bonds are up. Although China is pulling out some of its money, the scare that everyone wants to pull out their money and ruin the US is unfounded. Sometimes, economics is telling people the obvious, when they want to believe the ludicrous.

The public health care option may be off the table. Back to high health care expenditures? Have congressional Republicans attempted to make any concessions at all? Bipartisanship seems to imply compromise.

Venezuela, China, and land grabbing

Venezuela's inflation (still) isn't doing so hot. No surprises there, right?

Though, China's doing well! (again, still) A lot of countries seem to want to piggy-back on China's growth. Still, no surprises. Investing in China yields better returns than investing in a country with negative growth.

Since bubbles have popped, investors are buying up land in developing countries. Housing isn't bringing in money anymore, so commodities and land is where the money is going. ... So, what happens to the developing countries when this new bubble pops?

Development, crowding out, NewDeal2.0, economic terminology, and China,

Here's a nice story about a UCLA grad student making a difference in the world.

The Skeptical Optimist points out that the "crowding out" theory is bunk.

Here's an interesting website providing commentary from political scientists, economists, historians, and more. NewDeal2.0.

Uwe Reinhardt tells writes an article mostly directed at economists, I think. Some our terminology shouldn't is misleading when used in public discourse. We should be careful in using it, and others should take it with a grain of salt.

Is the Chinese economic model more effecting than the US economic model? Uh, no. Despite China's growth, models show pretty clearly that underdeveloped economies will tend to have higher growth rates than developed economies. This isn't a function of types of economic systems.

G-20, credit crisis, auto industry, and taxes

Now that the G-20 summit is over, you can imagine that a lot of people are weighing in on what they consider to be the important results. Dani Rodrik says that it was a victory for Europe. Vicky Pryce talks about the focus on trade. Free Exchange seems optimistic about most of the results. Justin Fox talks more about the IMF's cash. ... And that's just a drop in the bucket of all the commentary going around out there.

Calculated Risk provides a bunch of graphs of credit crisis indicators. We're still high on all of them, but things are looking better.

Free Exchange considers how one would separate the auto and oil industries. We don't want rising oil prices to sneak up on us again, which may happen due to rising demand in China, but there are fewer incentives for fuel efficient or electric cars while oil prices are low. Of course, this is nothing new, it's just another thought on that same old topic. The way to do it might be a tax on gas.

Mike Mofatt talks about why value-added sales taxes are more efficient than other taxes.