Page 4 - Robert Barro News Today

When political leaders communicate to their constituents, the mediatransmit and often analyze those messages. How Americans view the world, their government, and the economy is therefore largelyinfluenced by media reports, which often contain economicmisinformation. This paper refutes 10 common misconceptions abouttaxes, spending, and budget deficits that are spread by politiciansand reporters.

Jennifer A. Marshall: Two events this past week remind us that America's religious culture con­tinues to flourish in the 21st century. I'm thinking, of course, of the warm reception to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI and the somewhat cooler reaction to Senator Barack Obama's comments about Pennsylva­nians clinging to guns and God. From the sublime to the mundane, both examples show that Americans remain a very religious people.

How a better-educated world Is changing the balance of power. From Nicholas Eberstadt and Evan Abramsky for Foreign Affairs.

This report is a practical guide for using the Index of Economic Freedom—the invaluable annual measure of economic (and hence political) freedom around the world.

Will MacAskill, author of the forthcoming book What We Owe the Future, on surviving the era of catastrophic risk.

The misery index uses simple factors such as inflation and unemployment rates to explain a country's happiness levels.

The Misery Index, a gauge of how the overall economy is doing, might offer some insight into how citizens are performing in the current economy.

There is evidence of a pattern whereby more economic development and higher per capita income is associated with lower religiosity. Communist regimes have a strong negative influence on religiosity,although there are a few remarkable outliers to this trend. Thereis little relationship overall between whether countries are moreor less religious and whether their economics grow quickly orslowly.

By Rislanudeen Muhammad   The Misery Index measures the social and economic costs for individuals living in a particular country. It helps in understanding the extent of socio-economic hardship in a country.  It is meant to measure the degree of economic distress felt by people, due to the risk of (or actual) joblessness as well […]

Longtime readers know that I am not the biggest fan of Paul Krugman, especially when it comes to his advocacy of government inflation and budget deficits. It's especially ironic when I criticize Krugman's writing on international trade, since that's the area in which he won the Nobel Prize.