Mark A. Thoma is an associate professor of economics at the University of Oregon. He joined the UO faculty in 1987 and served as head of the economics department for five years. His research involves the effects that changes in monetary policy have on inflation, output, unemployment, interest rates and other macroeconomic variables, and he has conducted research in other areas, such as the relationship between the political party in power and macroeconomic outcomes. He received his doctorate from Washington State University.
Recent Blog Posts by Mark Thoma
- ‘Political Constraints in the Aftermath of Financial Crises’
- Shifting the Center of the Political Debate
- State Socialism Versus State Capitalism
- James Bullard Responds to Tim Duy
- ‘What Output Gap?’
- Is President Obama a Mercantilist?
- SOTU: The President’s Economic Proposals
- Should We Feel Sorry for the Wealthy?
- Profits and Resource Flows
- Social Insurance and Unemployment: Do People Deserve Poverty?
- ‘How My Taxes Are Raised Matters’
- Wanted: Job Creation
- New Old Keynesians?
- Policymakers Need Better Data on the Economy
- Bond and Market Vigilantes are Not the Same People
- Sanctioning Blackmail
- The “Great Divide” in Economics
- Is Third Party Centrism the Answer to Our Political Problems?
- How Close are We to a Second Recession?
- Reckless Endangerment of the Truth
- ‘Barack Obama Fail Department’
- Deficits More Than Pay for Themselves
- Romer versus Geithner
- Increasing Taxes on the Wealthy Is Unfair???
- The Ryan Plan Is “Fundamentally Immoral”
- Are Things Improving?
- Should the Fed Respond to Commodity Price Increases?
- Medicare Recipients Against Handouts
- The Slow Recovery of Unemployment
- What Caused the Financial Crisis?
- Sachs: America’s Political Class Struggle
- Shiller: Stimulus, Without More Debt
- Unemployment and Food Stamps
- A Few More Reactions to the Tax Cut Agreement
- A Few Reactions to the Tax Cut Agreement
- The Administration’s ‘Communication Problem’
- Shiller: Bailouts, Reframed as ‘Orderly Resolutions’
- What Impact Will the Election Have on Financial Reform?
- Bernanke: What the Fed Did and Why
- The Fed Will Purchase $600 Billion in Treasury Securities
- One More Time with Gusto: Tax Cuts Do Not Pay for Themselves
- What’s the Big Idea?
- “Are You Happy or Angry that the Government Has Made 8.2% on TARP?”
- Moral Hazard in the Shadow Banking System
- Greed May Not be Good for the Economy, but Envy Is Worse
- FRBSF Economic Letter: Labor Force Participation and the Future Path of Unemployment
- The Bush Tax Cuts and Infrastructure Spending
- Did I Hear that Right? You Want to Raise Interest Rates?
- It Is Time for Bernanke to Stake Out a Public Position
- Who Creates Jobs? Small vs. Large vs. Young
- Is the Unemployment Problem Cyclical or Structural?
- Economic Growth and the Bush Tax Cuts
- A Triple Dip?
- Income Inequality, International Payments Imbalances, and Crises
- Gunnar Myrdal: Fiscal Policy in the Business Cycle
- Don’t Let Fed Economists Tell You Otherwise…
- Should Monetary Policy Be More Expansionary?
- Do Deficit and Inflation Hawks Know Best?
- Is the Fed’s Caution Justified?
- Weekly Claims for Unemployment Insurance Increase
- Strange Arguments for Higher Rates
- Thoma on Reich – Why Economic Advisors Are Paid to Be Economic Advisors
- Bankers Have Been Sold Short
- The Economics of Immigration Are Not What You Think
- Shiller: Fear of a Double Dip Could Cause One
- Drill, Baby, Drill. Spill, BP, Spill
- More Investigations of Wall Street
- The Two Issues to Watch on Financial Reform
- Why Did Bad Bonds Get Good Ratings?
- How Can Macroeconomics Be Fixed?
- Giving Up on Policymakers
- Monetary Policy Can Do More
- Dog Bites Man
- Questions and Answers about the Financial Crisis
- Shiller: A Crisis of Understanding
- The High Road Procurement Policy
- We Need Jobs, Not Deficit Cuts
- Hearts and Minds
- Obama Wants to Limit Government Spending Despite High Unemployment and a Fragile Economy
- Clearly this is Their First Rodeo
- Obama Proposes Volcker-Style Financial Reform
- Taxing Bailed-Out Financial Institutions
- Will We Get ”Sensible, Comprehensive Financial Reform”?
- A Job-Rich US Recovery is Still Plausible
- The Fairness of Financial Rescue
- How Bad Biology Killed the Economy
- Should Taxes be Progressive?
- Too Big to File Suit?
- We Face a Real Challenge in Dealing with that Feeling that the Crisis is Over
- Defining Success for Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen
- Stiglitz: Too Big to Live
- Did Bank Executives Lose Enough to Learn their Lesson?
- Deposits in Failed Banks as a Percent of GDP
- Savings Gluts and Bubbles
- Will the Obey Plan End the War?
- Independent Does Not Mean Unaccountable
- America’s Broken Politics
- “What if a Recovery Is All in Your Head?”
- China and the American Jobs Machine
- Unlike the New Deal, Obama’s Plan does not put People on the Public Payroll
- The Fed is Already Transparent
- Tax Cuts and Recoveries
- Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity
- The Berlin Wall Had to Fall, But Today’s World is No Fairer
- Reserve Accumulation and Easy Money Helped to Cause the Subprime Crisis
- Why State and Local Governments Need More Stimulus Funds
- Something is Wrong with Wall Street
- Public Trust has Economic Consequences
- Skyhooks versus Cranes: The Nobel Prize for Elinor Ostrom
- Labor Markets Need More Help
- Will Health Insurance Exchanges Work?
- The Anti-History Boys
- An Inside Look at How Goldman Sachs Lobbies the Senate
- Output, Productivity, Employment, Household Debt, Consumption, and Wealth
- The Response to Climate Change “Can Be Gradual—and Affordable”
- Did Economist’s Ever get it Right?
- Who Has All the Answers?
- The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
- The Public Plan Is Not the Same Thing as Cost Control
- Making the Sale on Health Care Reform
- The Wait for Financial Reform
- An Echo Chamber of Boom and Bust
- Obama Lucky to have Bernanke
- Why This New Crisis Needs a New Paradigm of Economic Thought
- Paul Krugman: All the President’s Zombies
- Social Security: Time to Uncap FICA…
- How Will We Know when the Economy Turns the Corner?
- Can Econometricians Tell Us which Macroeconomic Model is Best?
- Stay the Stimulus Course
- Paul Krugman: Averting the Worst
- Lucas Roundtable: Ask the Right Questions
- Spending Versus Tax Cuts
- Could an Early Warning System have Predicted the Crisis?
- Deep Recession Calls for Healthy Dose of Fiscal Stimulation
- Savings Rate Could Stay High
- How Wars, Plagues, and Urban Disease Propelled Europe’s Rise to Riches
- Why had Nobody Noticed that the Credit Crunch Was on its Way?
- Equity and Efficiency in Health Care Markets
- Should Bernanke Be Reappointed?
- Fed Watch: The Debate Continues
- Fed Independence
- Ben Bernanke: The Fed’s Exit Strategy
- Why Toxic Assets are so Hard to Clean Up
- Paul Krugman: The Joy of Sachs
- How Should We Interpret Goldman Sach’s Unexpectedly Large Earnings?
- Money Monopoly
- Paul Krugman: The Stimulus Trap
- What Caused the Housing Bubble?
- France is “Remarkably Effective at Deploying Funds Quickly”
- Paul Krugman: HELP Is on the Way
- Rationing Health Care
- “The Revival of the Big Markets vs. State Planning Debate”
- Should We Pop Bubbles?
- Paul Krugman: Betraying the Planet
- Paul Krugman: Not Enough Audacity
- Obama and “Regulatory Capture”
- Paul Krugman: Health Care Showdown
- Paul Krugman: Out of the Shadows
- Rogoff: America Should also Look to its Fiscal Health
- “Health Care Rationing Rhetoric”
- Re-Interpreting the Blinder Numbers in the Light of New Trade Theory
- Rogoff: Rebalancing the US-China Economic Relationship
- “Education and Technology: Supply, Demand, and Income Inequality”
- Too Big to be Restructured
- The Culture of Blame Game
- Shiller: Home Prices May Keep Falling
- “The Problem with Bailouts”
- “An Umbrella that Melts in the Rain”
- “Benefit-Cost Analysis is No Help”
- DeLong: The Hidden Purposes of High Finance
- Carbon Offsets
- “Moyo’s Confused Attack on Aid for Africa”
- “Crazy Compensation and the Crisis”
- US and European Employment Rates
- Global Imbalances and Future Crises
- “Do Schools Make Inequality Worse?”
- Greenspan’s Capital Idea
- “Paul Romer’s Many Hong Kongs”
- FRBSF: U.S. Household Deleveraging and Future Consumption Growth
- “Stay the Course”
- Who’s Afraid of a New Reserve Currency?
- Fed Watch: Not So Green Wednesday
- “Adam Smith and Web 2.0″
- Paul Krugman: Harry, Louise and Barack
- Paul Krugman: Stressing the Positive
- Geithner: How We Tested the Big Banks
- The Social Security Obsession
- Too Big to Prosecute?
- Paul Krugman: Falling Wage Syndrome
- “No Time to Dither”
- “The Twenty-First Century Will be the Age of Inductive Economics”
- Paul Krugman: Money for Nothing
- Luck and Taxes
- Fed Watch: TALF Disappointment and the Fed’s Balance Sheet
- Sachs: Paying for Government’s Expanded Economic Role
- “There were Exactly Five People Who Foresaw This Crisis”
- Self-Regulation Doesn’t Work
- “Bank Regulators Clash Over Endgame”
- “Tax Tea Party Time”
- “The Asset Bubble Theory of Income Inequality”
