public-finance

After its dramatic plunge, silver may be experiencing a huge disconnect between its traded value and its importance as a critical material.

We thank Julie Shi, Joe Price, Yuli Xu, and audiences at the International Health Economics Association 2025 and American Economics Association 2026 conferences for comments and reactions that have improved this paper. Ted Telford initiated the data collection underlying this work. Support from National Institutes of Health (NICHD) through Award HD 042731-01 is gratefully acknowledged…

In the 1830s, a French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States and returned home with Democracy in America, a penetrating analysis of a society marked by energetic voluntary associations and a restless spirit of enterprise. Tocqueville admired much of what he saw, but his verdict was not uncomplicated. Near the end…

News release The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has announced that Rhys Phillips will be the next Chief Cashier and Director of Notes. He will take up the role on 19 October 2026.  Governor Andrew Bailey said: “Banknotes play a central role in public life. They serve not just as a means of…

A new Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Labor Review helps clarify the relationship between pay and job satisfaction. The take-home message is a resounding, “It depends.” Using Federal Reserve survey data on workers who changed jobs between 2021 and 2023, the report finds that changes in pay and benefits alone don’t always improve happiness on…

We are grateful for comments to Larry Ball, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Ina Hajdini, Lubos Pastor, seminar participants at the University of Chicago, Harvard, University of Iowa, and participants at the NBER Inflation: Frontiers or Research and Policy conference. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the…