Weekend reading

This is a weekly post we publish on Fridays with links to articles we think anyone interested in equitable growth should be reading. We won’t be the first to share these articles, but we hope by taking a look back at the whole week, we can put them in context.

Links

Matt Levine digs into the argument that index mutual funds reduce corporate competition and what this says about the role of the financial system. [bloomberg view]

Kevin Carey argues that universities, at least as unified institutions, are illusions. [the upshot]

Izabella Kaminska draws out the connection between the decline in “petrodollars” and global currency reserves. [ft alphaville]

We often use the Great Depression in the United States as the benchmark for the worst recession in history. But is that true? Frances Coppola looks at the data. [coppola comment]

Noah Smith worries that the decline of manufacturing will take away of key source of growth for low-income countries. [bloomberg view]

Friday figure

Figure from “The Declining Labor Force Participation Rate: Causes, Consequences, and the Path Forward” by Elisabeth Jacobs