DataPoints

Economists will be arguing over this for years, so we might as well get started now. Have Obama's economic policies helped? (We could detour at this point into a Clintonesque discussion of what "help" means, but let's not for now.) The issue was joined up at New York University the other night, in a formal debate among six eminences divided into three-person teams. Among those arguing the affirmative was Mark Z., whose opinions on the subject are extensively documented.

Eventually, I gather, we'll be able to view the entire session. For now there's this clip from Elliot Spitzer's argument for the negative:

And also this (non-embedded) clip of Zandi & Spitzer previewing the match on Bloomberg. (Warning: balky website. How come only the ads work?)

Who won? Depends on who you ask, of course. By the debate organizers' rules, it was the pro team; audience polls before and after found a larger number switching to their side than to the antis'. But the blogosphere will be heard: Reuters' Felix Salmon and Nicole Gelinas of City Journal say it was the antis' night. (And report what sounds like the biggest applause line, from Alan Meltzer: “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin...” )

Nothing gets an economist's adrenalin flowing like a correlation. These folks appear to have found a juicy one, and I suspect we'll be hearing more about it soon.

Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior

...We test this hypothesis using data on police reports of family violence on Sundays during the professional football season. Controlling for location and time fixed effects, weather factors, the pre-game point spread, and the size of the local viewing audience, we find that upset losses by the home team (losses in games that the home team was predicted to win by more than 3 points) lead to an 8 percent increase in police reports of at-home male-on-female intimate partner violence. There is no corresponding effect on female-on-male violence. Consistent with the behavioral prediction that losses matter more than gains, upset victories by the home team have (at most) a small dampening effect on family violence. We also find that unexpected losses in highly salient or frustrating games have a 50% to 100% larger impact on rates of family violence...

Everyone, it seems, wants to know when housing will come back. Those who attended the Moody's Economy.com Fall Outlook Conference earlier this month received a preview from analyst Andres Carbacho-Burgos. Even if you weren't there, however, you can view Andres' presentation by clicking here or in the multimedia box on the Dismal home page. (What, you didn't know there was as multimedia box on Dismal's home page? Tsk tsk... as my late mother in law would say, "Eyes have they but they see not...")

It was 20 years ago today, and it's hard to recall a more optimistic moment. Germans have much to celebrate; for all the bumps and bruises, reunification was a success. And yet, some researchers have found sobering evidence that it takes more than a bulldozer to bring down economic barriers.

Why do borders still matter for economic activity? The reunification of Germany in 1990 provides a unique natural experiment for examining the effect of political borders on trade both in the cross-section and over time. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rapid formation of a political and economic union, strong and strictly enforced administrative barriers to trade between East Germany and West Germany were eliminated completely within a very short period of time. The evolution of intra-German trade flows after reunification then provides new insights for both the globalization and border effects literatures. Our estimation results show a remarkable persistence in intra-German trade patterns along the former East-West border; political integration is not rapidly followed by economic integration. Instead, we estimate that it takes at least one generation (between 33 and 40 years or more) to remove the impact of political borders on trade. This finding strongly suggests that border effects are neither statistical artefacts nor mainly driven by administrative or "red tape" barriers to trade, but arise from economic fundamentals.

With our help, BusinessWeek offers a travel guide for those seeking to launch or continue careers. Nicely illustrated, too.

The recession might be technically over, but unemployment is rising month after month even in most of the nation's strongest job markets.

A full-fledged job recovery seems to be a long way away. But some metros are poised for significant job growth by the first quarter of next year. BusinessWeek.com teamed up with Moody's Economy.com to identify America's 25 next recovering job markets. These metros were ranked based on Economy.com's projected job growth in the first three months of 2010.

FollowingMark Z., outlines the future of the beleaguered U.S. housing market at the client conference.

Mark Z. is giving his semi-annual presentation to clients this morning at the Penn State Great Valley center. Some of his key slides: