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by Luigi Zingales The euro crisis isn’t Angela Merkel’s fault. The real culprits are the founding fathers — Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Delors or Romano Prodi — who created a common currency based on poor economics and worse politics. Read article> 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Consumers would not necessarily be better off if cable and satellite TV firms were required to offer a la carte pricing for individual channels, because the networks' programming charges and the satellite-and-cable fees could adjust in response to this rule. 

By Amir Sufi The failure to address crippling household-debt burdens is leading local governments to embrace the radical idea of using eminent domain to seize and write down mortgages. Over the past month, two cities in California — Stockton and San Bernardino — have made moves to file for bankruptcy… Read article> 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Long run fiscal sustainability in the U.S. will require cuts in currently promised Medicare and Medicaid benefits and/or tax increases that include higher taxes on households with incomes below $250,000. 

On June 28, the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s health-care law. Opponents and supporters are still sparring over whether its mandate is a tax. It’s time to get over this debate. The mandate’s mild penalty was never this law’s central economic and policy flaw. The legal distinctions among a mandate, a tax, a penalty, […] 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) Assuming that Germany eventually agrees to backstop the debt of southern European countries, the eurozone as a whole will be better off if that bailout is unconditional, rather than accompanied by the labor market reforms and future budget controls that Germany is demanding of countries in return.

B) If Germany fails to bail out the southern tier of Europe, its own economy will be hurt more — because of output and asset losses — than it would be by an unconditional bailout.

C) The main reason other eurozone countries need to worry about Greek banks losing access to ECB support is because the ensuing chaos in Greece could trigger bank runs in peripheral countries. 

As he challenges Barack Obama for the presidency, Mitt Romney may be inclined to leave the issue of income inequality to his opponent. That would be a mistake. The reason isn’t just that the country’s widening income gap over the past few decades is an issue any president should address. Romney should also talk about […]