jobs and employment	237
economics	180
education	153
economic development	153
state and local government	140
taxes	126
indiana	117
budget and spending	112
finance	110
migration and population change	109

CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2018

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January 7, 2018	Relax: Charitable Giving Will Rise in 2018There is a great deal of uncertainty about the ultimate size of the impact.
January 14, 2018	School Financial Problems an Important Issue for This Legislative SessionSchool children in poor areas receive more funding than students in rich areas.
January 21, 2018	Carrier Illustrates the Big Economic Shifts of Our TimeMachines eliminate some labor and shift the skill and educational requirements of the surviving jobs.
January 28, 2018	HB 1315 Is a Pragmatic Fix to Muncie School DilemmaThis school corporation needs a restoration of confidence before it can achieve any real stability.
February 4, 2018	Most Indiana Counties Should Stop Pursuing Economic GrowthEighty or more Indiana counties are in absolute or relative decline.
February 11, 2018	Housing Shortages Are Really Neighborhood ProblemsA third of the variation of home prices in a city are determined by school quality.
February 18, 2018	Uncertainty, Not Inflation, Is the Stock Market's WorryIn practice, there are many constraints to inflation.
February 26, 2018	School Choice Saves CommunitiesAll school choice did was let students flee underperforming schools without forcing families to move.
March 4, 2018	Legislature Gets an "A" on Sunday SalesThe move to permit Sunday sales of alcohol is a step towards greater personal liberty.
March 11, 2018	Rustbelt Cities Must Focus on Middle Class NeighborhoodsSchool quality is always the most pressing issue for middle class neighborhoods, but other amenities matter. The cost of improving amenities in communities that are likely to survive for several decades is very small.
March 18, 2018	Low Unemployment Is Time to Rethink Our Economic Development PoliciesThe most important single assumption supporting all our economic development efforts is that labor supply is perfectly elastic.
March 25, 2018	Schools Need Bolder ActionEvery extra dollar must be spent on educating Muncie’s children and restoring confidence in the future.
April 1, 2018	Think More Deeply About Community Strengths and WeaknessesSome forces pull people to cities, while others move them out.
April 8, 2018	Pothole Hell and the Debate About TaxesWe have dug a deep hole for ourselves, both literally and figuratively.
April 15, 2018	We Need Better Thinking About the Gender Pay GapPay gaps are due primarily to occupational, educational and family choices.
April 22, 2018	A Tax and Spending AnecdoteIt is not the tax rate the matters, but rather the value we receive from taxes that informs our choices.
April 29, 2018	A Not-So-Quiet Revolution in Economic DevelopmentThe economic development of the past 50 years has cheapened our land, immiserated workers, and starved local governments of much needed revenues.
May 6, 2018	Indiana at Huge Risk in Trade DisruptionsBetween 1818 and 2018, technology essentially killed every existing job and created every new one.
May 13, 2018	Midwest Growth Was Always About PeopleFactories came to Indiana because it possessed one truly great asset—people.
May 20, 2018	School Referenda and Local GovernmentRecent examples reinforce the simple notions of local governance.
May 27, 2018	The Opposite of War Is Not Peace, It Is TradeTrade forces us to move beyond benign coexistence into cooperation.
June 3, 2018	Workforce Development Problems Are Deeper Than They SeemSince 1990, the United States has not created a single net new job for workers who have not been to college.
June 10, 2018	We Are on the Cusp of Relearning the Impacts of Trade WarsLet me explain briefly and plainly what trade is and what it is not.
June 17, 2018	Midwest Communities Need Fact-Based Leadership, Not BromidesFar too many people view their city or county as a business with a marketing problem.
June 24, 2018	Temporal Inequality Is Much Larger Than Income Inequality TodayFrom antiquity to about 1650, the average person existed at the margin of subsistence.
July 1, 2018	Public Sector Union Hurting Municipal GovernmentsUnions flourished when workers were interchangeable.
July 8, 2018	Donnelly’s Automation Adjustment Act Should Be EnactedMost workers were not eligible for assistance because of job losses to automation, not trade.
July 15, 2018	The Limits of MacroeconomicsForecasting recessions is far murkier than forecasting the weather.
July 22, 2018	Worsening Effect of TariffsTariffs have already affected the local economy.
July 29, 2018	Tasks Can Be Automated, but Not SkillsSteel production would have to grow by 250 percent without any new technology to grow employment back to the levels of the late 1980s.
August 5, 2018	Midwest Must Save Middle Class NeighborhoodsIf your community isn’t thriving, your problems are far deeper than you suppose.
August 12, 2018	Ten Years of This ColumnThis has been an exciting and tumultuous time to write about economic policy, and along the way I’ve learned quite a few things.
August 19, 2018	It Is Time to End the War on DrugsWe need another approach.
August 26, 2018	College Starts AgainHere you can entirely reinvent yourself in ways that will never again be possible.
September 2, 2018	The NAFTA Deal Is Pure BaloneyNAFTA effects were mitigated by changes in productivity.
September 9, 2018	Indiana’s Housing Glut Is a Chronic ProblemThe estimated value of existing homes has fallen beneath the replacement costs.
September 16, 2018	Some Advice for High School GraduatesMost young workers will have to look to the private sector for training.
September 23, 2018	Critiques of Capitalism All About State and Local PoliciesYoung people turning to our workforce development system will find it focused wholly on supplying workers to businesses rather than offering a resource for career-minded adults.
September 30, 2018	Broadband Funding the Right Move, for Unexpected ReasonsMeasures of regional inequality were worse due to the absence of this technology.
October 7, 2018	Amazon and Some Harsh Facts About Pay and Labor ShortagesIn several industries, businesses are unwilling or unable to pay market wages for the workers they want.
October 14, 2018	The Causes and Effects of This Growing Trade WarEven as manufacturing production will continue to expand, employment will not.
October 21, 2018	Some Worrying and Not So Worrying Causes of Slow Wage GrowthMuch of the problem associated employment with might simply be due to missing data points.
October 28, 2018	Thinking About the Next RecessionThe good is news is that labor markets seem strong, jobs are plentiful and wages may be rising.
November 4, 2018	China Is a Poor and Backward NationChina may ultimately prove a significant strategic threat to the United States.
November 11, 2018	Some Real Lessons of Veteran’s DayI think myself lucky to have been a soldier of this nation.
November 18, 2018	Amazon LessonsThe clearest lesson of Amazon is that people matter to business location decisions, probably more than everything else combined.
November 24, 2018	Thanksgiving for Economic Growth and Human FlourishingAcross the developed world, poverty is no longer the result of economic conditions.
December 2, 2018	GM’s Layoffs Are a Warning to Indiana’s Workforce PoliciesFactory jobs are not coming back and manufacturing employment will be a much smaller share of US jobs in the future.
December 9, 2018	Factory Productivity Growth Isn’t About Machines, but PeopleEven if our industry is dominated by technology, we often fail to see how this affects production within our firms.
December 16, 2018	Slowing Growth and Greater Risk in 2019We look to data indicators to anticipate changes in the new year.
December 23, 2018	Thinking About Economic Growth Like an EconomistEconomists and businesses think about community growth in very different ways.
December 30, 2018	Understanding Job Numbers in 2018An announcement of new jobs reflects only one small part of the total job creation and destruction that occurs in an economy.

Center for Business and Economic Research - Ball State University

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CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2018