“There is a persistent belief, among both state officials and the public, that clean cars and clean fuels alone can achieve California’s climate goals, but this is fundamentally untrue,” he says. “Even if we have 100 percent zero-emission vehicles and 75 percent renewable energy production by 2050—both ambitious goals—we still need a 15 percent reduction […]
Economic activity in the Twelfth District continued to expand at a moderate pace during the reporting period of September through early October. Conditions in the labor market tightened noticeably, and wage pressures picked up. Price inflation increased moderately. Sales of retail goods picked up slightly, while activity in consumer and business services was solid. Activity […]
The third and most ignored reason California doesn’t use much electricity is that their tax and regulatory policies and high costs of doing business have steadily driven out industries that use a lot of energy to manufacture things such as steel and cement. There’s irony in this, of course, and it’s this: California’s environmentally-minded leaders […]
A NIMBY group may be satisfied with stopping a housing project in their neighborhood but I wonder if they realize that their efforts are discriminatory – creating displacement and relegating people of color to areas of greater poverty. According to a recently released study, that’s exactly what those efforts produce. The study, conducted by the […]
Using administrative employment data from the state of Washington, we use short-duration longitudinal panels to study the impact of Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance on individuals employed in low-wage jobs immediately before a wage increase. We draw counterfactual observations using nearest-neighbor matching and derive effect estimates by comparing the “treated” cohort to a placebo cohort drawn […]
Elon Musk’s companies have propelled his net worth to almost $20 billion. But how have government policies and taxpayer money boosted his businesses? From subsidies at the national and state level, to federal tax credits for consumers buying electric cars and solar panels, to fuel efficiency standards that help bring millions in revenue for Tesla […]
There is “a fine line public agencies, officials and employees walk between legally disseminating information and illegally advocating for or against a ballot measure or candidate” under California law. That’s the opening of an article in publicceo.com, a website devoted to governmental management, written by two lawyers well-versed in the subject. The article, essentially a […]
For most of the last two decades, the share of women participating in the U.S. labor force was in decline, puzzling demographers and economists since female participation was rising in many other developed economies. Thanks to a strong economy, that long-running decline shows signs of reversing. Labor-force participation among prime-age U.S. women aged 25 to […]
Academic researchers, state analysts and California’s gubernatorial candidates agree that the fundamental issue underlying the state’s housing crisis is that there are not enough homes for everyone who wants to live here. The problem, a new poll says, is that the public doesn’t believe it. A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times survey found that just 13% […]
The federal government’s most powerful economic weapon is the tax code, and its most pressing problem is the ailing American Dream. Enter “opportunity zones,” economically distressed communities where new investments can receive preferential tax treatment. The incentives were quietly inserted into last year’s tax-reform bill. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently predicted they could prompt $100 […]
Strong consumer and government spending powered economic growth in the third quarter, although a warning sign about the outlook emerged in the form of weak business investment. Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S.—grew at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of 3.5% from July through September, the Commerce […]
California was built by people with aspirations, many of them lacking cultural polish or elite educations, but dedicated to hard work, innovation, family and community. A large number came from other countries or poor backgrounds: sharecroppers from the South, campesinos from Mexico, people fleeing communism and poverty in Asia, escapees from Hitler’s Europe or Okies […]
As always, the state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. And check out the Transparent California website to see the unbelievably large pay and benefit packages received by California’s “public servants” if you really want to look at where our money goes. This initiative is just a chance to prop up the state’s […]
To hang on to state funding, Los Angeles will eliminate a disputed requirement that gave city politicians the power to block funding for homeless housing in their districts. The decision ends a longstanding practice that has drawn criticism from nonprofit groups that assist poor and homeless people: Under city regulations, L.A. has required developers seeking […]
The rise of the U.S. to economic greatness is an extraordinary story. But it is a story with a sting in the tail. Productivity growth in the U.S. has all but stalled in recent years. The number of new companies being created has reached a modern low. Geographical mobility has been in decline for three […]