Must- and Should-Reads: July 3, 2017

• Jay C. Shambaugh: On Twitter: “More evidence of slowing inflation lately: core pce prices up just 0.1 p.p. in May. 12 month change 1.4% (down from 1.6% in 12 months prior…” https://twitter.com/JayCShambaugh/status/880804850002526208
• Doruk Cengiz, Arindrajit Dube, Attila Lindner, and Ben Zipperer>: The effect of minimum wages on the total number of jobs: Evidence from the United States using a bunching estimator: “We estimate the total impact of the minimum wage on a ected employment by comparing the excess number of jobs just above the new minimum wage… http://www.sole-jole.org/17722.pdf
• Martin Sandbu: The minimum wage wars are heating up: “The best thing Seattle could do now is to push ahead with its full experiment… https://www.ft.com/content/365f7e10-5d72-11e7-b553-e2df1b0c3220
• Jay C. Shambaugh: On Twitter: Slowing Inflation: “More evidence of slowing inflation lately: core pce prices up just 0.1 p.p. in May. 12 month change 1.4% (down from 1.6% in 12 months prior…” https://twitter.com/JayCShambaugh/status/880804850002526208:
• Ezra Klein: Conservatives believe Medicaid is worthless, so slashing it is harmless. They’re wrong: “Expanding Medicaid saves lives at a cost of $327,000 to $867,000 per life saved… https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/6/29/15885796/medicaid-senate-gop-health-bill-benefits-bcra
• Ezra Klein: It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct: “It’s depressing. But it’s true: Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter… is aghast at the Senate GOP’s health care bill… https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/29/15892504/liberal-caricature-conservatism-correct
• Sarah Kliff: On Twitter: “A stunning pair of charts of the CBO report from my colleague @alv9n https://t.co/nZHz8OMurV“ https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/879460806198538241
• Atul Gewande: How the Senate’s Health-Care Bill Threatens the Nation’s Health: “The Senate bill would also ultimately make people who buy insurance on the A.C.A. exchanges—people without coverage from an employer or from Medicaid—pay far more money for far worse coverage… http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-senates-health-care-bill-threatens-nations-health

Interesting Reads:

• Financial Times: President Trump’s destructive path on steel: “It is absurd for the US to claim that its defence or infrastructural capabilities are threatened by cheap Chinese steel. There is no global shortage of the commodities, and if the US government needs to secure supply of specialist materials, it can already use its public procurement rules to favour domestic companies…” https://www.ft.com/content/d399c7c0-5cbf-11e7-b553-e2df1b0c3220
• Fernando Perez: The State of Jupyter https://bids.berkeley.edu/news/state-jupyter
• Paul Krugman: On Twitter: “A point about the Trump trade war: steel and aluminum very capital-intensive, so protecting them would exacerbate decline in labor share https://t.co/M1YynzBVCC…” https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/881506052323381249
• Benjamin D. Sommers, Atul A. Gawande, and Katherine Baicker: : “Whether enrollees benefit from that coverage is not one of the unanswered questions…. Arguing that health insurance coverage doesn’t improve health is simply inconsistent with the evidence…” http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsb1706645
• Ben Bernanke: : “Stagnant median wages, limited upward mobility, social dysfunction, and political alienation…. How did it happen?…. At a fifty-thousand-foot level, they appear to be the product of some broad global developments of the postwar era, together with the U.S. policy response (or lack thereof)…” https://www.ecbforum.eu/uploads/originals/2017/speakers/Speech/Bernanke%20ECB.pdf
• Joe Ryan: China Is About to Bury Elon Musk in Batteries – Bloomberg: “Factories are adding enough capacity to power the equivalent of nearly 1.5 million Model S vehicles…” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-28/china-is-about-to-bury-elon-musk-in-batteries
• Fatih Guvenen*: Understanding Income Risk: New Insights from Big Data https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/understanding-income-risk-new-insights-from-big-data
• Jared Rubin: Rulers, Religion, and Riches http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/36819/excerpt/9781107036819_excerpt.pdf
• Andre Costopoulos: The academic journal is obsolete – ArcheoThoughts: “…” https://archeothoughts.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/the-academic-journal-is-obsolete/
• Stephen Buranyi: Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?: “It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google–and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell…” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science
• Ann Crawford-Roberts, Nichole Roxas, and Ichiro Kawachi: One estimate: 208,500 additional deaths could occur by 2026 under the Senate health plan: “One estimatete: 208,500 additional deaths could occur by 2026 under the Senate health plan…” https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/28/15881720/deaths-senate-health-care-bcra
• Michael Ollove: Medicaid Expansion Saves Money for States: “Medicaid expansion has given a budget boost to participating states, mostly by allowing them to use federal money instead of state dollars to care for pregnant women, inmates, and people with mental illness, disabilities, HIV/AIDS, and breast and cervical cancer…” http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/4/29/states-find-savings-through-medicaid-expansion
• Equitable Growth: Research on Tap: After Piketty: Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 5:00 PM http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/06/equitable-growth-research-on-tap-after-piketty-tue-jul-11-2017-at-500-pm.html
• BERNIE!!: Kevin Drum: I GET LETTERS: “The single biggest proponent of SB562, California’s single-payer health care bill, is the California Nurses Association…” http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/06/bernie-national-nurses-united-appears-to-be-in-the-business-of-trying-to-turn-a-majority-into-an-ineffective-minority.html
• Weekend Reading: McSweeneys: I Only Protested the Affordable Care Act Because the President Was Black. Please Don’t Take Away My Health Insurance http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/07/weekend-reading-mcsweeney-i-only-protested-the-affordable-care-act-because-the-president-was-black-please-dont-take-awa.html