BERKELEY  —  When it comes to the United States Congress, nothing is ever over until it’s over. But as of late July, it looks as though two major pieces of legislation will soon be on President Joe Biden’s desk, awaiting his signature.

BERKELEY  —  On September 6, Basic Books is publishing Slouching Towards Utopia, my economic history of the “long twentieth century” from 1870 to 2010.

BERKELEY  —  What policy will the US Federal Reserve announce after the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day meeting this week, and what policy should it announce?The first question is easy: There is a high probability, 75 per cent, that the Fed will follow its previ

BERKELEY  —  As of Friday, May 6, the bond market expected US consumer price inflation to average 2.5 per cent between five and ten years from now. That is the rate of inflation needed to equalize returns on inflation-indexed and non-indexed US Treasury securities.

BERKELEY — In the history of modernity, the real sea change came in 1870, with what the Nobel laureate economist Simon Kuznets called “Modern Economic Growth”.

BERKELEY — Humanity as a whole is wealthier today than at any time in its history. And yet, from the short-term challenge of the pandemic to the existential threat of global warming, there is a widespread sense that things are going badly wrong.

BERKELEY — Approximately 13 per cent of low-wage jobs in Germany would not be viable if workers understood just how good their outside options truly are.

BERKELEY – In the past three years, technological advances have provided about one percentage point of warranted US real wage growth each year, admittedly, only half the rate of earlier times, but still something.

BERKELEY — If you are concerned about the well-being of the United States and interested in what the country could do to help itself, stop what you are doing and read historian Geoffrey Kabaservice’s superb 2012 book, “Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction