From 1981-2000, the U.S. economy grew at a snappy pace of about 3.4%. Then it downshifted to 1.6%—including the Great Recession—from 2001-2010.The future...

Currency unions have cracked before, but none with the scale, ambition or interconnectedness of the euro area. Contemplating the dread consequences of such a disintegration may yet prompt concessions from both Greece and its creditors that prevent the worst happening. But can the level of fear be adequate to engender such a change of heart while not so powerful as to trigger panic? Again, the prognosis is uncertain.

Despite all the mortgage modifications, refinancings, and cutbacks in properties taken back by banks and put for sale that have taken place in the past 2 ½ years, prices continue to decline. Will this change anytime soon?

At the very same time that U.S. electricity producers are slashing their use of coal for economic and environmental reasons, countries around the world are dramatically increasing their use of the fuel. A look at coal and electricity demand in locations from Hanoi, Vietnam to Dusseldorf, Germany shows that the rest of the world is not going beyond coal. In fact, just the opposite is happening.

Postal services around the world have struggled to adapt since the the arrival of e-mail, often because they are tangled up in politics. Congress recently prevented the US Postal Service, which loses $25m a day, from closing some branches and ending Saturday delivery. In real terms, America’s postage price has fallen since 2001. Its postal service is the cheapest of the countries for which we have figures, charging ... More

The New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) closed its most recent fiscal year with a return of just 5.96 percent — well below the 7.5 percent target rate used to discount its long-term liabilities.

The earned-income tax credit is often said to encourage work, but it may do just the opposite.

This map looks at state excise tax rates on table wine (that is, ordinary wine that is neither carbonated nor fortified.) At the top of the list is Alaska, which levies a tax of $2.50 per gallon; Louisiana levies the smallest excise tax at 11 cents per gallon.

The staff of the Republican Joint Economic Committee of Congress digs into the fiscal and economic performance of states in a new report that raises concerns about the diverging paths of states, with some states enacting significant reforms to deal with their debt and pension problems and others continuing to pile up liabilities.

The shale gas boom in the U.S. has led to a big drop in carbon emissions, as power generators switch from coal to cheap gas.  According to the International Energy Agency, U.S. energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, fell by 450m tons over the past five years – the largest drop among all countries surveyed.

North America now has a century of gas supplies at current consumption rates. So liquified natural gas is likely to gain market share in transportation as firms shift to natural gas vehicles.

How far away are states from returning to their pre-Great Recession employment peaks? IHS Global Insight has produced two charts, one looking at the percentage of jobs below peak employment, with the other looking at when might various states get back to that old level.

Just 16 states have seen job growth since President Obama took office, according to state employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.The remaining states have lost a combined 1.4 million jobs since January 2009.Even 34 months after the recession officially ended in June 2009, there are still 11 states that have fewer people working now than at the start of the recovery.

Child mortality in Africa has plummeted, belying the continent’s “hopeless” reputation. The chart below shows the change over the most recent five years in the number of deaths of children under five per 1,000 live births.

This ranking sorts 55 countries by average price at the pump and by "pain at the pump," which is measured by the percentage of average daily income needed to buy a gallon of fuel.

For those tracking the ongoing pop-pop-popping of the renewabubble....

Congress considers a bill to limit states from imposing income taxes on traveling workers unless they spend at least 30 days in the state.

There is no doubt that inequality is increasing. Those with more education are pulling farther and farther away from those with less.

Taxes make up 40 percent of the European fiscal adjustment.

Governments in the rich world have mostly run deficits over the past three decades.

Public policy, in particular financial regulatory reform, remains a significant factor in the future of the securities industry in NYS and NYC. The threat of further taxation, as well as pending federal regulations has brought fundamental uncertainty to the securities industry and its business planning.

The Green River Formation—an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming—contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale. USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions.

Just as with Italy, Greece has a malfunctioning political economy and scores low on the quality of its institutions.

Idaho scored an A plus overall, along with Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. No. 5 in the rankings, Louisiana, scored an A.

A new poll finds most back President Obama's soak-the-rich Buffett tax rule. But they also want dividend and capital gains taxes kept low to encourage investment and growth. Problem is, you can't do both.

Some of the nation's most troubled state pensions, in terms of funding, shortfalls and political rancor...

Growth prospects in parts of Europe have diminished drastically in the past 12 months.

The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show.That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

Except for a very brief period of time in which its economic growth was falling, but not as fast as in the rest of the U.S., California's economy has been somewhat of a drag on the U.S. economy since the third and really the fourth quarter of 2006 through at least the end of 2010. Fixing whatever might be wrong with California's economy will go a long way to improving the economic health of the entire United States.... More

The challenges faced by government programs like Medicare and Social Security are illustrated in this animated graphic tracing the country's population distribution by age as it changes over the decades. While the 'baby bust' generation (1925 to early 1940s) are currently in retirement and being supported by working baby boomers, the picture changes dramatically in coming years.

It didn't take local unions in Providence long to declare they intend to sue the city to stop it from ending cost-of-living adjustments to pensions.And why not? One former fire official who retired with a pension of $63,510 annually has seen his pension increase to... More

Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance

The homeownership rate in the U.S. fell in the first quarter of 2012 to 65.4% (see chart above), according to data released today by the Census Bureau.  That was the lowest homeownership rate in 16 years, since the 65.1% rate in the first quarter of 1996, and it looks like it will probably continue falling in the future.  ... More

Expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, the end of the payroll-tax holiday, and the start of the new healthcare surtax and the Medicare payroll-tax increase are all coming On top of all of that, Congress will likely hit the debt limit again around the end of the year. While few observers expect Congress to do nothing, uncertainty about taxes and fiscal policy is likely to skyrocket by the end of the year.