It is always great to read such papers/case studies.
Sanghamitra Das, Kala Krishna, Sergey Lychagin and Rohini Somanathan have written this nice paper on the topic. Voxeu has a summary (which is what I have read). The paper looks at whether public sector firms change when faced with competition.
We know private sector firms change or die in wake of competition. What about public sector firms?
Peter Diamond finally withdrew his Fed nomination (HT: Mankiw). After not being considered by Senate, despite twice being nominated by Obama, Diamond had enough of it. This blog has always wondered why he would be interested after being opposed by Senate first time.
Being just awarded the Nobel Prize, I am sure he had more important things to do after being rejected once.
Gauti Eggertson of NY Fed has this terrific post.
He says we are back to 1937 when both policymakers and economists erred leading to another round of depression. As most of us know that in 1937 Fed raised rates fearing inflation. The inflation fears arose tracking rise in prices of commodities!:
