Interest Subsidies on Student Loans: A Better Class of Drain

Student loans,

The wrong solution for the wrong problem: why Europe needs to shift away from fiscal policy and focus on labor markets

As the European debt crisis enters its sixth year, European elites continue to propose new policy “solutions” that previously were deemed by integration scholars as a bridge too far. From the creation of Europe’s first banking union to the establishment of common EMU fiscal resources that faltering member-states could draw upon, to even Angela Merkel’s vocal support of a disciplinary fiscal union, giving the EU unprecedented veto powers over national budgets[1], Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has an abundance of action plans

Backlash against the status quo does not always lead to positive-sum gains

The result from last week’s vote highlights the dangers of anti-status quo politics to the public at large and the working class in particular. Alison Johnston argues that anti-status quo politics in the Brexit referendum selected false scapegoats as targets of outrage, as facts, experts and political and economic reason were drowned out by grand visions of change. She concludes that political backlash against the status quo does not always lead to positive-sum gains: rather, it may simply and solely make things worse

Income growth may be more important to the development of housing bubbles than cheap credit

The development of a housing bubble in the United States is generally regarded as one of the root causes of the financial crisis that began in 2007, but what causes housing bubbles to occur? Alison Johnston and Aidan Regan write that while the bubble leading to the financial crisis has tended to be blamed on the spread of cheap credit, the fact that house price rises were far larger in some countries than others suggests there were other factors at play. They argue that although credit plays a role in housing bubbles, an increase in income appears to be far more closely linked to the price rises that occurred across the OECD prior to 2007

Taming Global Finance in an Age of Capital? Wage-Setting Institutions' Mitigating Effects on Housing Bubbles. LEQS Discussion Paper No. 87/2015 February 2015

Analyses in international political economy (IPE) identify interest rate convergence, magnified in the process of European monetary integration, and financial market liberalization as causal factors behind the rise of house prices. Despite these common credit supply shocks, developed economies experienced heterogeneous trends in housing inflation throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Turning towards demand determinants of housing prices, we focus on whether wage-setting institutions blunt financial liberalization’s impact on housing inflation via their restraining effect on incomes. Employing both a panel regression analysis and a structured comparison of housing developments in Ireland and the Netherlands, we uncover two findings. First, income growth is a more important predictor of housing bubbles across OECD economies than financial variables (although income’s impact on house prices is severely mitigated for the United States). Second, countries with coordinated labor market institutions that grant political coalitions in the export sector veto powers over non-tradable sector interests, realize more restrained income growth and, in turn, are less prone to housing bubbles

The absence of national adjustment tools is the reason why Eurozone countries continue to struggle

The Eurozone continues to experience low growth, while unemployment remains a substantial problem in several European states. Alison Johnston and Aidan Regan write that despite these issues, the European policy response has remained broadly similar since the crisis: reducing public spending and imposing structural reforms in periphery states to try and improve their competitiveness. They argue that there are far more fundamental problems in the Eurozone and that one potential way to solve these would be to encourage wage rises in northern economies such as Germany

Tobacco Farmer Interest and Success in Diversification

As U.S. farm income from tobacco production has declined in recent years, there has been increased interest in developing alternative sources of farm revenue to replace lost tobacco income, particularly in tobacco-dependent communities of the southeastern United States. The recent end of the tobacco quota program is expected to accelerate the exit of tobacco farmers and has heightened concern regarding the availability of profitable substitutes for tobacco. In this study, we examine the impact of farm, household, and market characteristics on tobacco farmer interest and success in on-farm and off-farm income diversification. Using survey data collected from a panel of North Carolina tobacco farmers in 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2004 combined with market data collected from secondary sources, we evaluate the influence of farmer preferences, resource endowments, market incentives, risk, and biophysical factors on tobacco farmers' attitudes regarding diversification into non-tobacco products, the extent to which they reallocated resources towards non-tobacco products, and their success in identifying profitable alternatives to tobacco production. Our research contributes empirical findings to the public dialogue concerning the ability of tobacco farmers and tobacco-dependent communities to adjust to structural changes taking place in the tobacco market.Tobacco, farm diversification, household model, quota buyout., Farm Management,

Tele-Lawyering and the Virtual Learning Experience: Finding the Silver Lining for Remote Hybrid Externships & Law Clinics After the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has rocked the world in innumerable ways. This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has a silver lining for law students in experiential learning programs. The pandemic has forced law schools across the country to fully utilize remote learning technology. The pandemic similarly forced courts to accept virtual tools in an environment that had previously relied primarily on in-person appearances. The lessons that law faculty and judges have learned from the pandemic will be permanent and may change the methods of operation going forward. Law schools that embrace the lessons they learned can help their law students and graduates be better prepared for a new practice environment, as distance learning and virtual law practice are likely here to stay. This article discusses why, despite what some may think, remote learning can happen successfully with experiential education and why virtual experiences will benefit students, their employers, and the public in the future. This article offers a guide as to how one law school, with a long history of remote delivery, made this pivot, and offers concrete guidance for other schools that might want to continue using virtual technology to help deliver experiential education post-pandemic. In Part II of this article, we describe the legal academy’s historic resistance to remote learning and the standards that govern experiential learning. We analogize law school resistance to remote experiential learning to the resistance of parts of our judiciary system in embracing remote court operations. In Part III, we document the way in which COVID-19 changed the world of legal education and the courts. In Part IV, we offer our thesis that virtual or hybrid legal practice is here to stay, and virtual experiential learning is essential training for the modern law student. In Part V, we discuss several pedagogical modifications that should be made to address challenges that arise from the virtual practice format and how to most effectively teach law students. Additionally, we discuss best practices for designing fully remote and hybrid clinic and externship courses. Lastly, in Part VI, we discuss the broader lessons on how remote work in experiential settings can lead the way for transforming modern legal education post-pandemic and provide concrete guidance on how to do so. Finally, we offer an appendix, outlining some practical guidance and a checklist to utilize when designing remote or hybrid externships and clinics