On Sunday, the NYTimes ran an insightful and well written op-ed by Seamus McGraw on his regrets of leasing his Pennsylvania land to a natural gas company. McGraw, who is the author of 'The End of Country", summed up his thoughts here: Standing there in what used to be our pasture on that light summer night, watching…
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Today's Daily Mail reports on a study from the Marshall University Center for Business and Economic Research, warning that West Virginia's high tax burden on the natural gas industry could hurt the development of the natural gas industry. Reading carefully, one may notice a lot of "maybes" "mights" and "coulds" in the report's conclusions. Let's take a closer look,…
Over the years, the Center has written tirelessly about the evangelical belief many media pundits, policymakers, and lobbyists have about the magic of tax cuts. In particular, the belief about tax cuts "paying for themselves." There is zero - I repeat - zero empirical evidence that tax cuts generate so much economic activity that revenues…
Last year, I did a couple of posts about rising income inequality and the struggles of the middle class. Today, I want to look at a similar topic, how much of the past few decade's economic growth has been felt by the middle class. I'll do this by comparing different measures of economic growth with…
This past Friday we talked about the illusions that some people have about the role of government in the "free market." Another wrinkle in the free market mythology is how the federal government supports what Alexander Hamilton called "infant industries" with direct investments, subsidies and tariffs. This is especially true when it comes to the…
The State Journal published a piece by former WV Delegate Pat McGeehan where he says that the only way to create jobs in the Mountain State is "f Government Gets out of the Way." He lists the usual conservative/libertarian ideas of less regulation, protect private property, abolish the income tax, and decentralize government. As my…
West Virginia's natural gas industry has received significant attention in the past few years, particularly with the development of the Marcellus Shale. The increase in attention and activity has led to an increase in jobs in the industry, but what exactly are the jobs and are they all reacting to the Marcellus boom equally? In their…
The Bureau of Business and Economic Research at WVU recently released population projections for West Virginia over the next 15 years. According to their projections, West Virginia's population will grow by 39,811 from 2010 to 2015, an increase of 2.1 percent. While the projected total population changes are minor, the changes in demographics are drastic. The following…
Our recent Jobs Count report showed that the economy has added zero net jobs since June and the unemployment rate remains above 8 percent. As a previous post had noted, the momentum the economy seemed to have been building during the recover has been lost over the past few months. However, one sector of the economy has been…
A little humor for the day via Krugman Blog..