Economic Recovery: A Novel Perspective from Ed Leamer (UCLA)

YouTube ^ | March 7, 2013 | Russ Roberts (Hoover Institution)

[GoodDay]

Why has the current recovery from the Great Recession been so mediocre? Ed Leamer of UCLA points out that the last three recessions have all had mediocre recoveries of both output and employment. His explanation is that changes in the manufacturing sector have changed the pattern of layoffs, recalls and hiring during recessions and recoveries. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the forces driving the changes in the labor market and the implications for manufacturing.

[GoodDay]

Very interesting discussion between economists Russ Roberts and Ed Leamer. I think Leamer underestimates the significance of government hampering of free-market forces that would normally adjust the market toward full employment, but his data and graphs are instructive: just as agricultural jobs in the US shrank as productivity in the farm sector grew, so too have manufacturing jobs shrunk as productivity (e.g., computers, robots) in manufacturing has increased. According to Leamer, many of those jobs are simply not coming back, because as far as manufacturing output (which has increased, by the way) is concerned, we simply do not need as many workers in that sector as we did previously. The problem, therefore, might reduce to the fact that our educational system is not preparing people for jobs in the various "information" sectors that now underpin manufacturing, as well as almost everything else.

[GoodDay]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aFN6X0O-wak

[wny]

Because it is not a recovery. The only reason it’s referred to as such is because there is a democrat in the Whitehouse.

[onedoug]

barry is killing the notion of working for ones self to rather working for the collective.

Incentive. There is none in this growing communist/muslim nightmare...but for the elite, for a little while longer.