Bjorn Lomborg sets global priorities

Also have a look at the website of the Copenhagen Consensus where you can download all individual papers that led to these outcomes.

Predictions for the labour market till 2015 based on studies and profession (in Dutch)

De economische crisis pakt op de verschillende opleidingsniveaus anders uit. Terwijl binnen veel
beroepen de vraag naar hoger opgeleiden toeneemt ten koste van lager opgeleiden, blijken juist
hoger opgeleiden (HBO’ers en WO’ers) maar ook ongeschoolden vaak te werken in sectoren en
beroepen die het hardst getroffen worden door de economische crisis. De vooruitzichten van
schoolverlaters tot 2014 zijn mede daardoor slecht voor de ongeschoolden en ook wat minder
goed voor de academici. Voor degenen die met een HBO-diploma op de arbeidsmarkt instromen
zijn de perspectieven het best, ondanks de dalende werkgelegenheid en de mogelijke
verdringing door WO’ers. Dat blijkt uit het vandaag verschenen rapport ‘De arbeidsmarkt naar
opleiding en beroep tot 2014’ van het Researchcentrum voor Onderwijs en Arbeidsmarkt (ROA),
Universiteit Maastricht.

Download the full report here.

the pros and cons of VAT

LIBERALS oppose a value-added tax because it falls more heavily on the poor. Conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine. Larry Summers, Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, once predicted that America would get a VAT when the two sides reversed positions. That moment may be approaching. Several prominent liberals and a handful of conservatives now see it as the most promising way to raise revenue, reduce the deficit and make the tax system more efficient.

Full story here

Fed under fire as public anger mounts

Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.
The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is always fair game for criticism and second-guessing, usually over interest rate actions. But this year the criticism is much broader as Congress responds to widespread public anger that the Fed bailed out Wall Street but not ordinary Americans, and with unemployment in double digits.

Full story here

The chart (on the left)  shows the annual shares of real world GDP for four geographical regions (European Union 15, Asia/Oceania, Latin America and the combined share of Africa and the Middle East) compared to the U.S. share of world GDP between 1969 and 2009 (data here). What might be surprising is that the U.S. share of world GDP has been relatively constant for the last 40 years, and is actually slightly higher in 2009 (26.7%) that it was in 1975 (26.3%). It's also interesting that the EU15's share of world GDP has declined from about 36% of world output in 1969 to only 27% in 2009. Further, despite having a large share of the world's oil reserves, the Middle East's share of global output has increased from only 2.23% in 1969 to 3.16% in 2009 (graph shows Middle East combined with Africa). 

Full story here

Europe's best and worst countries to find a job

If you're looking for work on the Continent, head north and avoid Spain.  

 The exact current data are here.

The graph on the left is for March 2009, for a graphical representation of current date go here.

Tobin Tax

Tobin, or not Tobin? That is the question. The answer seems to be the latter, judging from the slings and arrows that finance ministers have aimed forcefully at the idea.
When Gordon Brown, British prime minister, unexpectedly popped up at the weekend’s meeting of G20 finance ministers and floated the possibility of a “Tobin tax” on financial transactions, it represented something of a volte-face on his part. But the largely hostile reaction from other countries and his own rapid backtracking suggested that he had either misread his audience or was bashing bankers for domestic political ends.

Full story here

Key oil figures were distorted by US says whistleblower

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

UK and Australia: opposite sides

 Australian Central Bank raises interest rate

Bank of England extends quantitative easing

Gold hits record high on India's purchase

Gold prices on Tuesday surged to an all-time high after India’s central bank bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal, swapping dollars for bullion as the country’s finance minister warned the economies of the US and Europe had “collapsed”.

Read the full story here.

Thank to Rutger for the link.

the story so far, in one picture

World industrial production in the Great Depression and now.

Full column (but very short) here.

How Obama is using the science of change: behavioral economics

The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed, even though its members gave Obama white papers on messaging, fundraising and rumor control as well as voter mobilization. All their proposals — among them the famous online fundraising lotteries that gave small donors a chance to win face time with Obama — came with footnotes to peer-reviewed academic research. "It was amazing to have these bullet points telling us what to do and the science behind it," Moffo tells TIME. "These guys really know what makes people tick."

Read the full story from Time magazine here and one from Seed magazine here.

Thanks to Huub for pointing me to the Time article.