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The lack of impact of the Ex-Im Bank on exports shouldn’t be surprising given that even in FY2012 – the year in which it provided more aid than in any other – the Ex-Im Bank’s aid represented 2.31 percent of the value of all goods the US exported. (Note that the Bank has never subsidized exports of services.) Or to put it another way: during its most active year, over 97 percent of all US exports of goods never received this aid in the first place. Other years, that number rose beyond 98 percent.
T. Norman Van Cott explores why politicians ignore economists’ opposition to tariffs [3].
My GMU Econ colleague Larry White busts a myth about the zero lower bound [5].
Here’s the abstract of an excellent new paper by Matthew Mitchell, Scott Eastman, and Tamara Winter [6]:
This paper discusses a national survey of business leaders that sought to determine how government favoritism toward particular firms correlates with attitudes about government, the market, and selectively favorable economic policy. Findings indicate that those individuals who believe they work for favored firms are more likely to approve of free markets in the abstract but also more likely to say the US market is currently too free. These individuals are more skeptical of competition and more inclined to approve of government intervention in markets. They also are more likely to approve of government favoritism and to believe that favoritism is compatible with a free market. Those who have direct experience with economic favoritism or are more attuned to such favoritism are more likely to have distorted perceptions of free-market capitalism and are more comfortable with further favoritism.
This podcast featuring Kevin Erdmann is interesting [7].
Tyler Cowen is rightly unimpressed by Elizabeth Warren’s proposed, Trumpian agriculture policy [8].