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This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Conventional economic reasoning suggests that it would be a good policy to enact the recent Senate bill that would let undergraduate students borrow through the government Stafford program at interest rates equivalent to the primary credit rates offered to banks through the Federal Reserve's discount window. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

An effective way to increase savings rates of employees whose firms have defined contribution plans is to combine automatic enrollment in those plans and periodic automatic increases in their contributions (with the ability to opt out of either). 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Sustained tax and spending policies that boost consumption in ways that reduce the saving rate are likely to lower long-run living standards. 

We would like IGM Forum visitors who had trouble accessing our site last week to know that it is now working smoothly again. A temporary Google blacklist prevented many readers from accessing the site. Google has since rechecked our site, however, and removed the warning. We apologize to those of you who had difficulty. We […] 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Slavery in the United States was eradicated because of social and political events, not because it was an unprofitable institution for slaveholders. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Restricting US exports of liquefied natural gas would have adverse effects on the US economy. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: Because the US has underspent on new projects, maintenance, or both, the federal government has an opportunity to increase average incomes by spending more on roads, railways, bridges and airports.

B: Past experience of public spending and political economy suggests that if the government spent more on roads, railways, bridges and airports, many of the projects would have low or negative returns.