Anheuser-Busch Briefing Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
1615 H St NW, Washington, D.C.
Registration and Breakfast: 8:00 a.m.-8:30 a.m.
Blog
December 26, 2011
By: Michael Hendrix
A recent survey commissioned by Zipcar, the company built on shared rides sprinkled across cityscapes, dramatically shows how differently Millennials (those aged 13-34 years) relate to business and the economy. More specfiically, it reavels a movement away from direct ownership and toward shared or collaborative consumption.
The Atlantic Cities project noted how car sharing is just one aspect o fthis broader trend of infusing an urban mentality born out of a lack of space into the broader cultural and economic fabric. When asked whether they would be OK with participating in a car sharing program, over 50% of respondents in the Millennials category answered affirmatively. Just 10% in the 55 and over category responded similarly.
December 23, 2011
By: Michael Hendrix
NCF curates a weekly list of blog posts that touch on emerging issues affecting the American business community.
December 22, 2011
By: Michael Hendrix
When Tyler Cowen's The Great Stagnation was first published this year, pundits everywhere had an "aha!" moment. Now it's Martin Wolf's moment at the Financial Times.While Wolf is rather later to the game, his review of Cowen's treatise is both timely and well written. Wolf first asks, is the "great stagnation" argument true and, if so, so what? What Cowen outlines at the beginning of his book are the all-too-familiar ills which have delighted declinists and offered endless fodder for debate. Among these ailments are the declining growth in median wages, the decade's listless job market, a looming fiscal crisis, and a general "willingness to let matters slide rather than face up to paying the bills." This much we know. What Cowen argues though is that beneath the surface runs a "technological plateau" upon which our comatose economy lies. We've done all we can to scale new heights, but what's left to build with? Resources and labor no longer come easily, and our labor force is already of a greater quality than we could have once imagined. We can always do more to improve our economy, but at an ever dearer cost. Where too are our big ideas? Innovation appears to be wallowing in stagnant shallows.
December 21, 2011
By: Michael Hendrix
A recent study by Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California-Davis, found that immigration has no effect on poverty rates and in fact has increased employment among native-born Americans from 2000-2009:
"There is essentially no effect of immigration on native poverty at the national level. At the local level, only considering the most extreme estimates and only in some localities, we find non-trivial effects of immigration on poverty. In general, however, even the local effects of immigration bear very little correlation with the observed changes in poverty rates and they explain a negligible fraction of them."
The American Enterprise Institute and the Partnership for a New American Economy similarly foundthat increasing the intake of high-skilled immigrants leads to a rise in the employment rate of native born citizens. The same is true for temporary H1-B workers. While Peri's study did not cover the length of the recent recession, this AEI study did and still found a net increase in native employment from skilled immigrants.
December 16, 2011
By: Michael Hendrix
NCF curates a weekly list of blog posts that touch on emerging issues affecting the American business community.