Tag economics

Calculating the United State’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

By in Economics, R-Programming Tag , ,

Summary: this post provides R code that reproduces the announced 'reciprocal' tariffs imposed by the US. Soon after Trump's tariffs were announced, it was noted the 'reciprocal' tariffs looked suspiciously like the US trade deficit divided by imports. Ever the skeptic, I couldn't believe it could be this simple. So. I decided to check it out myself with the help of R and UN Comtrade data. Here's my answer, neatly documented in R code. If you're interested in reproducing this analysis you'll need to get an API key for the comtradr package. Once you have an API key you need…

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Economic Policy is a Wicked Problem: It Needs Generalists

By in Economics, Opinion Tag , , ,

I remember being told by a mentor that the problem with my skill set was that I was a 'generalist'. Being early in my career, I didn't think too much about the feedback; as I really hadn't worked long enough to build a specialty even if I knew what I wanted that to be. But, I did find it confusing. After all, didn't the field of economics actively poke its nose into nearly every area of human existence - whether it be the links between abortion and crime or how to start a city? And weren't the intellectual giants of…

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