Recession, tax revenue, the Economist, and Monopoly.

Glenn Rudebusch, at the FRB San Francisco, answers five key questions. The financial crisis is over. The recession is most likely over. We won't return to normal employment for some time. Inflation will not be too high. The Fed has an exit strategy to undo its recession-fighting policy actions.

Federal revenue as a share of GDP is at its lowest point since 1950. It's an interesting graph, and I want to see how the percentage federal revenue has fluctuated with GDP growth and also with the change in tax rates. The top tax rate was slashed a lot in the 60s, but you don't see much of a change.

The Economist's forecast. No big surprises, I think. Still, an interesting read. I might expect a slower increase of the federal funds rate than they do, though.

Free Exchange on the history of Monopoly, Anti-Monopoly, and Hasbro.

Finance, Scrabble, and productivity

Free Exchange challenges a Dean Baker statement in which Baker essentially claims that the current economic situation is due more in part to the housing bubble rather than the financial sector. Free Exchange points out that the two are tied together. In that vein, Mark Thoma quotes Krugman as saying that we need to get rid of so-called shadow banking.

On a lighter note, Jeff Ely applies auctions to Scrabble with interesting results.

Robert Waldeman hypothesizes that, in the 90s and naughts, the productivity increases were due to downsizing. It's an interesting idea--and quite possibly some of the story--but I think that, at best, it works in tandem with the standard theory. Who ever said that there could only be one reason for productivity increases in the 90s?

The internet, market design, and Clive Granger

A recent report tries to capture the economic impact of the internet in the United States. In short, $300 billion and 3.1 million jobs. That doesn't take into account the social aspect, either, and how the internet has shaped the job market. As massive as the reported number is, it possibly understates the real impact of the internet.

In a similar vein to a past article on Varian, David Warsh thinks about economic engineers in the field of game theory and market design. The boom of auction theory combined with the economic impact of the internet makes for a large impact of relatively recent economics. There are a lot of really interesting examples of market design in the real world, and I think more recent events will only serve to highlight practical and empirical applications of economics.

I apparently recently missed the death of econometrics giant Clive Granger.