Macroeconomic Monitor
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EKIP

Piketty backs down on his inequality thesis

When the French economist Thomas Piketty published his massive paper arguing that the steady rise in economic inequality was inevitable under capitalism, his thesis and its supposed and empirical basis quickly gained support among leftists, who echoed Piketty’s call for greater redistributive taxation. Other economists spent a lot of time …

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Let's legalize ecstasy

Edward Hess In early January, four people in the UK died[i] as a result of using something that looked like ecstasy (MDMA). Before we understand why the war on drugs contributed to, rather than prevented, the deaths of these four people, let’s look at ecstasy itself. MDMA is …

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The dreaded deflation

In early January, Eurostat data was released showing the first annual deflationary episode in the Eurozone since 2009 – the overall price level fell by 0.2% between December 2013 and the same month in 2014. This sent the European Central Bank and a large number of Keynesian economists into a panic. From …

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How a Greek bankruptcy could still lead to the collapse of the EU

Frank Hollenbeck Greece is back in the headlines. This should come as no surprise to anyone. It would be naive to think that the Greeks would accept to remain in debt forever. Despite all the rumors that Greece will be forced to leave the eurozone, there is actually no such mechanism through which the member states of the European Union (EU) …

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Guest Essay: A Brief History of the World

Boyan Rashev Once upon a time there were two tribes that lived far from each other, and between them was the Great Water. Quite by chance, on the same day, smart people from both tribes invented the wheel while trying to drag a pile of cut wood to their villages. A historic moment! The smart ones who lived west …

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Guest article: Misunderstood tax fairness

Ivelina Petrova Often in the public sphere, elected politicians become the center of attention, talking about the “fairness” of taxation. But is there justice when the net benefits for certain groups of individuals are created as a result of the forcible seizure of property from other members of society? When support for poorer citizens goes through …

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The minimum wage and its effects on the labor market

The time has come for the drafting and adoption of the state budget, and, as we have become accustomed to every year, there has been talk of increasing the minimum wage (MW). Along with its other social measures, the so-called “right-wing” government has decided to increase the MW twice next year – at the beginning and in the middle …

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