jobs and employment	266
economics	208
state and local government	192
education	191
indiana	177
economic development	175
budget and spending	149
law and public policy	149
taxes	149
workforce and human capital	143

CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2007

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January 1, 2007	Payroll Envy "It’s hard to speak dispassionately about people who earn more in a month than the average American makes in a lifetime."
January 8, 2007	Reflections on Our Economic Past "... inflation can be driven by inflationary expectations as much as anything."
January 15, 2007	Reading the Tea Leaves on Employment Growth "We’re job growth laggards in this part of the country, pure and simple."
January 22, 2007	Keeping Score on Globalization "...if we are to enumerate the supposed evils of a globalized economic environment, we should list the benefits as well."
January 29, 2007	Decision Time on Property Taxes "...no one has come up with a way to replace the 5 or 6 billion of revenue, other than to offer a fervent hope that we can all suddenly live with a lot less government."
February 12, 2007	Is Earmarking Tax Revenues Wishful Thinking? "Important programs can be starved at the same time as less critical initiatives are awash with funds."
February 17, 2007	Tough Love in the Auto Parts Industry "...the biggest actor of them all - the customer - has new options, and is making different choices than before."
February 17, 2007	The Value of Good Habits "...in most places and on most days in America, paychecks don’t bounce, bank deposits don’t disappear, and the government doesn’t show up at your door and seize your assets."
February 26, 2007	What's Behind Income Inequality "...inequality has been growing slowly and steadily over a span of decades."
March 5, 2007	Do Wealth Fluctuations Matter? "...the possibility that fluctuations in housing values might work their way into our collective consumption patterns raises another source of volatility for those who manage the economy to worry about."
March 12, 2007	Turnabout is Fair Play in Evaluating Education "It's all a form of denial...over the unpleasant truth that we collectively do not value education in Indiana as much as other states do, including our Midwest neighbors."
March 19, 2007	Ideas Needed for Fixing Health Care Financing "...we simply can't afford to keep doing what we are doing."
March 26, 2007	Smoking and the Economy"...the differences in these survival rates...can have an enormous impact on the workforce and the population...."
April 2, 2007	Why Economists Don't Get Invited Back to Parties "Economists hold some views that make them more than a little unpopular in polite circles."
April 9, 2007	Indiana Employment Update "... [T]he real story in Indiana employment growth is what we are much less certain about, namely, payroll growth in the services producing side of the economy."
April 16, 2007	The Great Society Meets Fiscal Reality "The irony is that it could be the social welfare programs that are rich and those unlucky enough to be working and hence taxed to pay for them that will be poor."
April 23, 2007	Another Take on Scoring the Indiana Economy "...personal income is the single most comprehensive measure of our economic performance at the state and regional level."
April 30, 2007	Is Health Care An Economic Driver? "...the business opportunities in health care have been sufficient to attract plenty of investment without any sweeteners coming from the public purse."
May 7, 2007	Why It Makes Sense to Worry "There is always something to worry about when it comes to the economy, particularly for policymakers who are charged with managing its growth."
May 14, 2007	Your Employer Cares About Your Health"...thanks to the skyrocketing costs of health care, there is a new player in the mandate game, and that is businesses themselves."
May 21, 2007	The Wireless Challenge to Survey Research"It is an irony of the information age that the same technology that makes it so simple and inexpensive to communicate and ship information from anywhere to anywhere can frustrate attempts to collect it."
May 28, 2007	Can a Democracy Manage Budgets? "...in the case of Indiana’s sales tax on gasoline, a move to suspend the tax would have some especially bad repercussions."
June 4, 2007	Accountability in K-12 Education "...there are really two basic paths we can take to improve the quality of the graduates of our public schools."
June 11, 2007	Nothing New About Indiana's Manufacturing Employment Declines"Even as its employment totals shrink, Indiana’s economy remains more focused in manufacturing industries than ever before."
June 18, 2007	Will Indiana Always Lag in Job Growth? "...despite the easy answers you may hear to this riddle in your break room or hallway, getting at the reasons why is harder than you think."
June 25, 2007	What's Your Favorite Economic Indicator?"The question is, what pieces of the economy should we be paying the most attention to?"
July 2, 2007	Interest Rates in the News Again "If it were up to the American public to supply the funds to credit markets, rates would have risen sky-high a long time ago."
July 9, 2007	Can the Big Three Come Back?"There are more viable companies in the U.S. market today than at any time since the 1920's ...."
July 16, 2007	A New Take on the New Deal"...for all of its economic failings, the New Deal was a colossal political success, and tinkering with the economy has remained popular ever since."
July 23, 2007	Can Property Taxes Be Fixed?"...what our system has evolved into today breaks almost every rule and principle of taxation on the books, both in a political and an economic sense."
July 30, 2007	The Link Between Taxes and Health Care Costs"With a third-party insurance provider paying the bill, we may not even know the price of what we’re using."
August 6, 2007	How Tax Reform Could Help Control Health Care Costs "... the tax treatment of employer-funded health care premiums encourages companies and workers to craft insurance plans that pay for as many things as possible ..."
August 13, 2007	Is the Indiana Economy Growing?"... those job counts miss a lot of things that factor into the prosperity of communities around the state."
August 20, 2007	The Final Word "... Indiana faces some serious challenges in the coming years.... I see plenty of reason for optimism despite these challenges."
August 20, 2007	The Final Word"... Indiana faces some serious challenges in the coming years.... I see plenty of reason for optimism despite these challenges."
August 27, 2007	Coming to Indiana "As I begin to watch Indiana’s economy in earnest I see a hopeful state of affairs . . .”
September 3, 2007	Labor Day and the American Worker" ... the average Hoosier, in 1900 enjoyed about the same standard of living as today’s resident of Kazakhstan or Jamaica.”
September 10, 2007	The Ins and Outs of a Liquidity Crisis"...the problem isn't lots of foreclosures, it is simply that buyers of debt don't know how bad the problem might be.”
September 17, 2007	The "R" Word "Fortunately, being overdue for a recession is poor predictor of future recessions.”
September 24, 2007	Truth in Advertising at Wal-Mart"...the savings from shopping at Wal-Mart provide more nutrition supplement than the entire Food Stamps program nationwide.”
October 1, 2007	The Tough Road to Financing Transportation"Perhaps the biggest problem facing the state is the belief that government alone can solve the problems of transportation infrastructure and the movement of goods and people”
October 3, 2007	Where Have all the Unions Gone? "As workers become more important to businesses, unions become less important to workers – hence their decline.”
October 15, 2007	Globalization and Manufacturing in Indiana "The fundamental cause of most of our manufacturing job loses is simply increasing worker productivity.”
October 22, 2007	Wage Inequality in America - A Quick Analysis "The largest and fastest growing source of inequality is due to the supply and demand of educated workers in the United States.”
November 5, 2007	Some Hidden Savings in Governor Daniels' Tax PlanOctober 29, 2007 The Property Tax Plan October 22, 2007 Wage Inequality in America - A Quick Analysis October 15, 2007 Globalization and Manufacturing in Indiana IBB Home E-mail Article to Friend Enter recipient's e-mail: "In the end, any mass appraisal effort will be imperfect. But it will be far less imperfect, for a fraction of the cost, than the current system.”
November 12, 2007	An Economic Perspective on Veteran's DayNovember 5, 2007 Some Hidden Savings in Governor Daniels' Tax Plan October 29, 2007 The Property Tax Plan October 22, 2007 Wage Inequality in America - A Quick Analysis IBB Home E-mail Article to Friend Enter recipient's e-mail: "World War Two veterans were entitled to rest and relaxation. Instead, they turned their hands to a greater task and largely rebuilt the world.”
November 19, 2007	How Important is This Black Friday?"Until the magnitude of the loss is known, we should continue to be ready for a roller-coaster on Wall Street."
November 26, 2007	The Silver Lining on the Sub-Prime Mortgage"The biggest worry is that policy makers (primarily Congress) will over respond to the mistakes made by borrowers and lenders."
December 3, 2007	Indiana Needs a Property Tax"A full repeal of property taxes in Indiana would be inequitable, unstable and inefficient."
December 10, 2007	Exporting From Indiana"Indiana's exporting firms are heavily concentrated in just a few manufacturing sectors."
December 17, 2007	Moving Indiana into the 21st Century“The proposed reforms are crucial to linking the cost of public services to their quality.”
December 24, 2007	A Lump of Coal for Michigan“Indiana has an economic climate that fosters job creation.”
December 31, 2007	Forecasting Indiana’s Economy“The fundamentals for the state’s economy are in place.”

Center for Business and Economic Research - Ball State University

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CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2007