For nearly three generations, the United States and scores of other nations have prospered through trade governed by international rules. But in the last couple of years, University of Minnesota economist Tim Kehoe has watched with alarm as global trade pacts have come under attack by the Trump Administration. In a recent interview, Kehoe outlined the risks of a new era of America First trade policies.

The time for slowly reducing fossil fuel consumption is past. The moment has arrived to slam on the brakes – hard and fast. Full stop, as soon as possible. Not just in Minnesota, but around the nation and across the world.

The Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute is interested in papers on the topic of Practical Issues in Public Pension Design for a conference January 22-23, 2019.

“Inequality begins at birth,” Art Rolnick said in response to the question about what he’s working on now. “Indeed, it begins prenatal. And there is no market for purchasing parents. That is, there is a market failure.”

The shift toward one-time bonuses from sustained wage increases is less favorable for workers, said Fatih Guvenen. “Bonuses are never guaranteed,” he said, adding they give companies the flexibility to drop pay perks during a downturn.

“Firms will pass along those cost increases to consumers when they think they are permanent,” said Tim Kehoe.

Commentary in MinnPost by Public Pension Senior Fellow Kurt Winkelmann outlines why more steps must be taken to reduce risks in Minnesota's public pension system

McFadden’s intellectual contributions are many, but his most famous contribution was how to statistically handle discrete choices. Put very simply, before McFadden’s work, the profession used theory based on the assumption that an individual’s “choice set” was continuous, as in, for example, the amount of gasoline a driver uses in a month.

When workers are solely responsible for their own retirement income, the savings rate should be about 18%. Moreover, investment policy calls for high equity allocations during the early working years and relatively high bond allocations during retirement years.