Unemployment rates, Shiller on housing, urban data, and soccer.

The FRB Cleveland again, this time telling us about alternative unemployment rates.

Shiller, of the Case-Shiller housing index, tells us about the housing market. Seems like people are more rosy now about their long term investment prospects.

Matthew Kahn talks about possibilities with urban data. If we could look at power bills, we could determine whether people have high-power consumption items, of if they're just being wasteful. I'm sure there might be a number of interesting uses of the data, if privacy issues could be resolved.

The economics of soccer. How do I get to do that?

Krugman's history, South Africa, rational markets, HDMI cable, and crime trackers

Also from Newmark's Door, Krugman gets history wrong. Both people on the left and the right disagree with him, though I think that's kind of an empty statement.

Relatively good news for HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The infection rate has leveled off, with reductions in certain age groups. Still, South Africa has 5.5 million HIV-positive people.

Justin Fox gives a quick summary of the history of rational markets in the last 80 years, which is also a summary of his books.

Ezra Klein and Tyler Cowen seem to think that some traditional brick-and-mortar stores are not lowering their prices in their competitive markets. HDMI cable seems to be very expensive in stores, but online is available for next to nothing. Klein further comments that online shopping is a wealth transfer from those not comfortable with online shopping to those who are comfortable with online shopping. It seems to me that those comfortable with online shopping are in larger, more competitive markets. Brick-and-mortar stores cater to a different demographic than online stores. Moreover, I think that particularly in the case of 80% and 90+% discounts, online stores sell excess stock or used stock, rather than stock just recently received from a manufacturer. I admit these are conjectures, though.

ThinkMarkets provides some links to crime tracking websites, and neighborhood information websites.

Hurricane claims, grocery stores, inventive cities, recession news, and Venezuela

2008 hurricane claims put Texas home insurance companies in the red. Ouch. Hurricanes continue to affect us. I guess whoever designed the hurricane insurance plans didn't know how much risk was actually involved, or those insurance companies didn't properly prepare themselves for such a situation.

Grocery stores are doing well during the recession.

Houston is one of the world's most inventive cities. We're pretty creative people! I don't think a lot of people believe this, though.

Productivity and labor costs are up. You might expect this from a recession, as companies try to focus on efficiency to weather the rough times.

Venezuela is seizing the assets of more oil service companies. I would have ended my operations there some time ago.

Tax on soda, fat, PUMA, broadband, solar power, and recession news.

A study shows that a tax on "sugary soft drinks" will result in health benefits regardless of how the tax revenue is used. $1.2 billion could be raised in tax revenue in New York alone, but I wonder how it'd impact the economy as a whole--I imagine the soft drink industry and the medical care industry would each take a hit.

A reduction of "brown fat" could make you more resistant to gaining weight and developing diabetes. Apparently, brown fat is what works to keep you warm when it's cold out.

The PUMA, a two-seater Segway, makes short commutes to work more feasible. During the modernization of Europe, people lived in smaller-sized communities as technology increased. I wonder if that'll happen again. Towers keep getting bigger and bigger, and land becomes more and more precious. In a similar vein, the FCC's $7.2 billion plan to expand broadband can serve to pick up the speed of commerce, and expand markets.

Here's a solar-powered city planned for Florida.

Jobless claims fell more than expected, and many retailers report disappointing sales numbers. Things aren't looking good yet.

Time v money, manufacturing jobs, future cities, R&D, advertising, recessions, Economics degrees, and Latin American data

A study shows that advertisements that reference time are more appealing than those that reference money. Spending time with something is more appealing than spending money on something. On the subject of consumer appeal, prices that end in 9 are also more attractive, the NYT reports.

James Joyner won't miss manufacturing jobs. Good riddance! I think this similar sort of discussion occurs whenever we lose jobs in certain sectors... probably in any country.

Ryan Hahn talks about cities of the future, sparked by Tim Harford. In my undergraduate years, I spoke in class of future cities as well. When the world becomes "too crowded," we'll just start building up or down. Massive towers of people and communities. Worried about land for food? The towers will have greenhouses. Worried about energy? Cover the towers in solar panels (there are certainly a myriad of energy solutions). This, of course, is an imagination of the extremely distant future, forced into existance by strong price incentives.

A discussion at the Angry Bear about R&D spending in the new budget. Technological progress drives economies, so I hope the money goes to good projects.

Southwest Airlines has sold adverising space to Sports Illustrated--on the side of their planes. This has got to be a marketing gimmick of some sort. Certainly, the people inside the plane can't see the advertisement, and you can't really see the side of a plane very well while it's in flight. You probably can't even see it from inside the airport! The only time this gets viewed is by the very limited number of people who can see the plane as it's coming in our leaving.

More on the recession: The NY Fed predicts an end by the end of the year, based on historical empirical evidence. Managers are more likely to take a pay cut, but lower workers have a harder time finding a replacement job. Menzie Chinn weighs in on the Mankiw-Krugman-DeLong unit root v trend stationary debate. I thought the debate got a little too personal when Mankiw dared Krugman to wager some of his Nobel money on the issue. As if there would even be a clear end to the data! Robert Waldmann laments on the implausibility of macroeconomic arguments. The Everyday Economist quotes anti-New-Keynesians.

The SCSU Scholars comment on how awesome a major Economics is. I agree it's pretty awesome, though I'd agrue that a major in Math gives you more options than Economics does (though, Math may be the only major which gives more career options than Math). I've been thinking that a restructuring of Economics programs may be a good idea, though. At least at my university, I think there should be more of a focus on political science and math. We give the students too many pure-economics classes to take, and they don't get much insight into how economics plays in the real world and what economics is like at the professional level.

Anyways, here's some great Latin American and Caribbean data.

Blogging, eating, and assorted stuff

Another interesting piece on blogging in economics from the Economist. Departments are typically measure prestige in their research output, but blogging reaches more people faster. Also, schools may have a comparative advantage in blogging rather than in research.

Should I be less amused when bankers are eating at McDonald's?

Contrary to what might be implied in Michael Mandel's article, Bloomberg reports that Texans will not be eating out less.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser attempts to put a trillion dollars in perspective for us. He reports that the IRS collected a trillion dollars in income taxes in 2006. So, imagine having to pay that much in income taxes.

I'm a sucker for silly. This post from the World Bank explains to us why we shouldn't fear ghosts. Thanks for clearing that up for us, Ryan Hahn. Ghostly revenge makes me feel safer.

The Secretary of Energy predicts rising demand for oil over the next two decades.

Houston is apparently the second largest home-building market in the nation. Katy's doing pretty well!

Houston: We're so great.

According to the Department of Labor, Houston has seen the second strongest job growth in the past 12 months. That's really good!

And, if you weren't impressed by that, there's a new book out to tell people why Houston's great. I wonder how widely it'll be distributed.

There are apparently projects to make the city more green, too, at affordable prices. Interesting!

In other news, ConocoPhillips is getting out of retail gas.

Economics is all about how everything is linked to everything else. If you cut taxes for the poor, they can more easily afford education, meaning a more educated populous, meaning a higher skilled workforce, and thusly higher GDP (just as an example). Hurricane Gustav may have hurt parts of Louisiana, but it's also affected the shrimping industry.

Cities, broadband, and globalization

This should surprise no one. As cities grow more dense and traffic gets worse, people turn to closer-to-home solutions for shopping. Sprawling cities get shopping centers, close to home, that support the majority of local shoppers' needs. It, of course, makes perfect sense. Some places even have everything self-contained in single, massive buildings--living space, work, and shopping all in one.

Have you ever been worried that municipal politicians are wasting your money? It happens at every level of government. How's that for dead weight loss?

Google talks about municipal broadband. As I said in my other blog, Houston's working on it! Apparently, other cities aren't having success, though.

PBS has a neat web page on globalization, though the economist in me always wants more data.