About
I'm an Economics Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley focusing on public finance topics at the intersection of labor economics and macroeconomics. You can follow me on twitter @omzidar.
Homepage, CV, & Research
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2012 Alan Auerbach Baumol's cost books Brad Delong College debt Economic Policy Education Emmanuel Saez Enrico Moretti Finance Fiscal Cliff Fiscal Policy Government Government Spending Great Recession Growth Hamilton Project Healthcare Healthcare Costs Housing Immigration inequality Investment Jobs Labor larry summers Laura Tyson Local Labor Markets Middle Class Monetary Policy NYTimes Obama Paul Krugman Productivity Raj Chetty Romney Spending States Stimulus Tax Cuts for Whom Taxes Tax Reform Wages-
Recent Posts
- Valuing The Vote: Evidence from the Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Great Questions from Paul Krugman
- Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany
- Local Economic Development, Agglomeration Economies and the Big Push: 100 Years of Evidence from the Tennessee Valley Authority
- It Takes a Regime Shift: Recent Developments in Japan through the Lens of the Great Depression
- The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation
- Worker Flows Over the Business Cycle: the Role of Firm Quality
- Does Entrepreneurship Pay? The Michael Bloombergs, the Hot Dog Vendors, and the Returns to Self-Employment
Twitter Updates
- RT @MarkThoma: Bernanke: Economic Prospects for the Long Run bit.ly/10a0EZN 11 hours ago
- Valuing The Vote:⁰ Evidence from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 wp.me/p2otxR-m7 15 hours ago
- Great Questions from Paul Krugman wp.me/p2otxR-m4 1 day ago
- RT @bobkocher: The highest price hospital in the US is in…NJ and run by ex-Blackstone guys. Not exactly Hopkins! nytimes.com/2013/05/17/bus… 1 day ago
- nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opi… 2 days ago
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Tag Archives: Productivity
Do fixed patent terms distort innovation? Evidence from cancer clinical trials
A new paper from Heidi Williams, Eric Budish, and Benjamin N. Roin: ABSTRACT: Patents award innovators a fixed period of market exclusivity, e.g., 20 years in the United States. Yet, since in many industries firms file patents at the time of discovery … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Benjamin N. Roin, Eric Budish, Healthcare, Heidi Williams, Innovation, patents, Productivity
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The Labor Market Is Not Zero Sum: EPI, Immigration, & Labor Market Misconceptions
Ross Eisenbrey had an NYT op-ed this week on immigration in which he said: “Bringing over more — there are already 500,000 workers on H-1B visas — would obviously darken job prospects for America’s struggling young scientists and engineers. But it … Continue reading
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Tagged Giovanni Peri, High-Skilled Immigration, Immigration, Labor Markets, Productivity, Ross Eisenbrey, Wages
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STEM workers, H1B Visas and Productivity in US Cities
Here’s a new and very timely paper from Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih, and Chad Sparber. ABSTRACT: Scientists, Technology professionals, Engineers and Mathematicians (STEM workers) are the fundamental inputs in scientific innovation and technological adoption which, in turn, the main drivers of the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Chad Sparber, Giovanni Peri, H1B Visas, Immigration, Kevin Shih, Productivity
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Quick Takes on Robots, Disability Insurance, Debt Ceiling, & Charts to inform Grand Bargains
1. I still don’t understand why Krugman thinks the invention of “doers” will be bad for high skilled workers. Here’s my reasoning. 2. Ed Glaeser “2013 Is the Year to Go to Work, Not Go on Disability” HT Evan Soltas 3. Foreboding Feeling: Fiscal … Continue reading
The Right Way to Spend on Healthcare
Amitabh Chandra and Jon Skinner have a related paper in JEL: ABSTRACT: In the United States, health care technology has contributed to rising survival rates, yet health care spending relative to GDP has also grown more rapidly than in any … Continue reading
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Tagged Amitabh Chandra, Dartmouth, Healthcare, Jon Skinner, Productivity, Spending
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Why Krugman isn’t quite right on Education & the Rise of Robots
In a recent post on the Rise of Robots, Krugman argues that growing capital-biased technical change undermines the need for better education: If this is the wave of the future, it makes nonsense of just about all the conventional wisdom … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Education, inequality, Jobs, Labor, larry summers, Middle Class, Paul Krugman, Productivity, Robots, statistics, technical change, Wages
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Why do We Need Productivity Gains in the Education Sector?
1. Antiquated Lectures: the college lecture format is antiquated. In my first year of graduate school, Brad Delong mentioned that the lecture format originally stemmed from a scarcity of books. Since only a few books were available, lecturers had to … Continue reading
Why Healthcare, Education, and Government Spending Keep Going Up – Baumol’s Cost Disease
The Economist reviews an important book that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently (research extending these ideas is forthcoming). HEALTH-CARE expenditure in America is growing at a disturbing rate: in 1960 it was just over 5% of GDP, in … Continue reading
Enrico Moretti on the Future of Manufacturing
Q: Both presidential candidates pledge to restore the U.S. manufacturing industry. Some economists say that’s essential; others say it’s impossible. What’s your take? A: The last two years have been good years for manufacturing employment, but they are the exception. … Continue reading
What determines productivity? The management practices hypothesis
Both as part of the third year labor group with David Card and the macro reading group with Yuriy Gododnichenko, we’ve been thinking a lot about productivity and why some firms are more productive than others. This issue is key to understanding why we observe … Continue reading
