Weekend reading

This is a weekly post we’ll publish every Friday with links to articles we think anyone interested in equitable growth should read. 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.

Economic theories

John Quigglin asks if the spread of the Internet has undermined the search models of the labor market and unemployment [crooked timber]

Steve Randy Waldman finishes his five-part series on welfare economics and how economics can become truly normative. The posts aren’t quick reads, but they are certainly worth the effort.  [interfluidity]

Secular stagnation

Neil Irwin on the Everything Bubble and the global savings glut. [the upshot]

Paul Krugman and Dean Baker react to Irwin’s piece. Krugman emphasizes the natural rate of interest and Baker the role of the trade deficit. [nyt and beat the press]

Growth in total factor productivity last year was the slowest since the Great Recession [wall street journal]

Taxes and transfers

Berk Ozler on what lessons we can draw from Brazil’s anti-poverty and inequality reducing policies [fivethirtyeight]

Finance

Izabella Kaminska on the future of banking, which is “[n]ot the death of banks per se, but definitely the death of banks in their current form.” [ft alphaville]