Things AP Econ Students Should Know

Treasury Yields Resume Ascent

Inflation trade intensifies anew following Yellen comments<p>Government-bond yields surged to their highest level since Jan. 3, as the inflation trade that took off in the days after Donald Trump’s election regained intensity.<p>The yield on the 10-year Treasury note settled at 2.461% on Thursday after …

The December Jobs Report in Seven Charts

The U.S. economy added 156,000 jobs in December, the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.7% and wages grew at the strongest pace since 2009. Here's a closer look at how that compares.<p>Job growth slowed in December, as employers added fewer jobs than economists surveyed by The Wall Street …

Want to Rev Up the Economy? Don’t Worry About the Trade Deficit

The economic policy of President-elect Donald J. Trump is still a work in progress. But if campaign rhetoric is a reliable guide, reorienting trade policy may become one of the main goals of the new administration.<p>Perhaps the best indication of Mr. Trump’s thinking is a report released by the …

How Economists Would Wage the War on Drugs

The monstrous cartels that run the narcotics business face the same dilemmas as ordinary firms—and have the same weaknesses<p>In April, the world’s governments will meet in New York for a special assembly at the United Nations to discuss how to solve the drug problem. Don’t hold your breath: Since the …

The hidden economic rules behind Tinder, marriage, kidneys, and college admissions

Stanford University’s Alvin Roth is a very rare thing: An economist who saves lives.<p>The co-recipient of the 2012 economics Nobel got his prize, in part, for helping to fix a long-standing problem with the market for kidney donations. Often family and friends were willing donors for someone who …

Greg Ip: Three Economic Puzzles Are Now Less Puzzling

After a perplexing start to the year, the economy is starting to make sense. That’s good news for workers and the Federal Reserve, but bad news for investors who are going to have to get used to some wrenching moves in the financial markets. Data out in the last week has begun to help solve three …

Global Oil Demand Rising, IEA Says

Growing demand may not be enough to catch up with increasing supplies<p>Low oil prices and economic growth have helped drive up consumer demand for energy across the world in 2015, the International Energy Agency said Thursday, a phenomenon seen from U.S. gasoline stations to Chinese auto …

China Struggles to Shake Up Salt Monopoly

Titans of table salt and other industries resist Beijing’s reform measures<p>JINZHOU, China—Han Tianpei and his wife dozed in their truck one early morning, waiting for a denim factory to open to deliver 10 tons of industrial salt. They awoke with a tap at the window, surrounded by a dozen enforcers …

Fed study: Tennessee has most regressive tax system

State taxes and inequality<p>States that boost income inequality the most: <b><br>1. Tennessee,</b> offsets 32.7 percent of the progressiveness of the federal tax …

How Much Should a Currency Be Worth? No One Really Knows

As debate over Pacific trade deal intensifies, U.S. lawmakers find themselves entangled in calculus that even IMF and WTO haven’t been able to pin down<p>Legislation that targets currency manipulation might make or break U.S. President Barack Obama’s signature Pacific trade deal. But calling out …

Senate Democrats vote to block Obama on trade

President Obama collided with his own party Tuesday when Senate Democrats stalled consideration of a trade measure that would give the administration greater authority to negotiate more freely with other countries.<p>The Senate vote was a sharp blow to the president’s efforts to win approval for a new …

Chicago Fed Says Natural Jobless Rate At Or Under 5%, Will Fall Further Over Time

Economists at the Chicago Fed argue in a new paper the U.S. economy remains even farther from a truly hot labor market than many central bankers think.<p>The economy’s so-called natural unemployment rate likely lies at or below 5%, and it will go even lower over time, the analysts say in a note …

Russia’s Beloved Borscht Reveals Reality of Inflation

Retired Siberian journalist tracks ingredients to document the country’s soaring food prices<p>MOSCOW—Every other month, retired teacher Natalya Atuchina cooks up a special pot of borscht in her home city of Omsk. A year ago, she bought the ingredients at local markets for 165 rubles ($3.20). In …

Debt Piles Up in Asia, Threatening Growth

Countries borrowed a lot during the crisis, and kept doing so afterward<p>SEOUL—Asian countries borrowed heavily to maintain growth during the financial crisis, but couldn’t break the habit even as the global economy healed. Now they are feeling the hangover.<p>Growth is slowing fast across the continent …

Tumbling Interest Rates in Europe Leave Some Banks Owing Money on Loans to Borrowers

Subzero rates have put some lenders in an inconceivable position<p>Tumbling interest rates in Europe have put some banks in an inconceivable position: owing money on loans to borrowers.<p>At least one Spanish bank, Bankinter SA, the country’s seventh-largest lender by market value, has been paying some …

Do Federal Taxes Reduce Income Inequality?

Ben Bernanke: The Fed Is ‘Groping’ to Find the Full Employment Rate

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he doesn’t know where the so-called full-employment level is now, saying the Fed “is in some sense groping” to determine it.