The Internet is Truly Awesome (Leonard Bernstein Mahler edition).

David Denby wrote a nice piece in the New Yorker a little over a year ago about this ten most "perfect" orchestra recordings of all time.  Coming in at Number 5 was Leonard Bernstein's Mahler 7 (the second time through) with the New York Philharmonic. (FWIW, I know seven of his choices, and love them all).

If one looks it up on the NY Phil's website, one finds a link to Lenny's marked up score of the piece, allowing us to see, among other things, directions from the composer he really wanted to make sure got  emphasis.  As such, the internet allows us to see how Leonard Bernstein went about thinking about one of the great, quirky pieces of all time, at any time we wish.

This is truly awesome.

John Roberts is supposed to be a smart man.

But he makes a specious argument.  He says that because in the presence of Voting Rights Acts, there is no disparity in voter turn-out, there is no need for a Voting Rights Act.  Huh?

Are models that assume linear utility useful?

I just saw a paper on how the desire of households to match with particular houses could explain housing market dynamics--in particular why house prices are more volatile than incomes.

Performing such an exercise is very difficult, and requires simplifying assumptions.  One of the most important simplifying assumptions in the paper is that utility is linear--that people value their last unit of consumption just as much as their first.  This assumption is clearly wrong--we know that marginal utility diminishes in consumption.  Yet the assumption was necessary to make the model tractable.

So do we know more about the world because of the model or not?  I really don't know.

If in 1987 you bought the average house in the average place...

…you have about broken even relative to the consumer price index. The Case-Shiller National Index for March 1987 was 62.03; for March 2013, it was 136.70.  The Consumer Price Index in March 1987 was 112.7; in March 2013 it was 232.77.  So the Case-Shiller Index has risen by  120.4 percent in 26 years; the CPI has risen by 106.5 percent.  So in inflation adjusted terms, the average house in the average place has risen by 13 percent over the past 26 years, or a little less than half of one percent per year.

[At the suggestion of Austin Kelly, I looked to see what would happen if I used the unit-weighted FHFA index instead of the value-weighted Case-Shiller index.  I found that based on FHFA, real house prices rose by 11 percent since 1991 (the first year for which data are available), or a little less than .5 percent per year.  So even though the index is different, the result is the same.]

Reposted from Forbes.

Could someone explain the market failure that protecting car dealerships solves?

The Wall Street Journal has a good story today about how car dealerships are (successfully) lobbying legislatures to ban Tesla Motors from marketing their cars directly to consumers.  GOP legislators, who get the willies about regulation that actually solves real problems, are on board with supporting protectionist policies for auto dealerships.

Does anyone really think that the industrial organization of the automobile retail industry works well?  My family buys a car every five years or so, and our experience is that no one tries to exploit asymmetric information like auto dealers.  I have lots of reasons to believe that our experiences are not unique.

What amazes me is that even in the age of the internet, when one can use sites like Edmunds to figure out what to pay for a car, dealers start out by assuming that the consumer is stupid, hope they get an absurdly marked up price, and only get reasonable when they find out their customer actually knows something.

Elon Musk is a visionary in many ways.  With the Tesla, he might make two important contributions--he might free  from petroleum, and he might free us from car dealers.

Crisis can be overcome with the energetic rehabilitation of the houses

Legambiente: "Is it possible to activate 3 billion euro of investments and 120,000 jobs per year"

Rome - The crisis can be overcome by the eco-renovation of houses and buildings thanks to which, according to Legambiente "can be activated 3 billion euro of investments and 120.000 jobs per year". For this reason, the Italian environmental organization has proposed - during a conference organized together with AzzeroCo2 - "a new system of incentives for energy improvement that allows to halve fuel consumption in the condo buildings".

"In light of the current situation emerges," according to Legambiente, "the need for new policies that may trigger a widespread  upgrading of the energy efficiency in buildings". With an eye especially for apartment buildings, where live about 24 million people in Italy and where very often the energy consumption are higher than the already high national average, especially if built after the 50's. According to estimates by Istat and Cresme, exists more than one million buildings with more than five rooms in which there is a condominium management. And, unfortunately for those who live there, hopes to reduce spending on energy bills are very few, given that the existing mechanisms are ineffective and often impossible to implement".

The aim of Legambiente is an average reduction of 50% of the housing consumption, certified by skipping energy class; based on a simulation carried out on condos in Milan, Rome and Bari average return through incentives varies between 31 and 36%, there would be a benefit in the bill and in the comfort both winter and summer, in addition, depending on the intervention, there could be a reduction in heating bills by about 50% within a maximum of 11 years for an amount that varies between 800 and 1300 euro per year.

According to Legambiente is necessary to introduce a new system of incentives that may apply in particular to condominiums, which offers a real possibility of reducing energy expenditure for families and at the same time attack the bulk of the energy coming from the building. "The model to look at is that of the Green Deal introduced in the UK, which allows the creation of interventions at no cost to families to pay for themselves with the savings made in fuel consumption," says Vice-President Edward Zanchini. "To realize these projects in Italy, in our proposal, they would Esco (Energy Service Company, ed) and construction companies, which could see from this scenario, a way out of the crisis in the sector."

"The interventation spaces to make our buildings more energy efficient are very broad, as shown by all the studies known," added Beppe Gamba, President of AzzeroCO2. "The economic obstacles that today's families have to carry out operations of this type can be overcome, and also creating good jobs, with the widespread intervention of the Esco that invest in their own and recover the investments with the savings made in the bill. But why is this virtuous cycle can spread requires new tools and a guarantee fund for loans to businesses. We are confident that the new Parliament will be able to tackle these issues in a constructive way".

< Source: CercaCasa.it >

A metaphor for why Goodness of Fit tests are, well, not very good.

I am proud to say I learned my econometric from Art Goldberger, who had little use for R-squared.

Anyway, a smart friend of mine (who works in industry and therefore might not want to be named) pointed out that he could probably fit the brushstrokes of a Jackson Pollack painting with a 17 degree polynomial and get an excellent R-squared.  But he still couldn't predict what a next brush stroke might look like.

A painting by Morgan Green

Reposting from my Forbes blog: the debate on Debt and GDP

My two cents:

Within the past day or so, economics conversations have been all about Rogoff and Reinhart and their critics, Herndon, Ash and Pollin.  The Rogoff and Reinhart (RR) paper purported to show that countries with more debt grow more slowly than countries with less; Herndon, Ash and Pollen (HAP) show that Rogoff and Reinhart’s data contains mistakes, and there is not much dispute about whether Herndon, Ash and Pollin’s corrections are right–they are.

HAP also do a pretty good job of showing that connections between debt to gdp ratio are not robust–they are sensitive to time period and country.  But they do not ask the question about direction of causality between debt and growth (page 3):

For the purposes of this discussion, we follow RR in assuming that causation runs from public debt to GDP growth. RR concludes, “At the very minimum, this would suggest that traditional debt management issues should be at the forefront of public policy concerns” (RR 2010a p. 578). In other work (see, for example, Reinhart and Rogo (2011)), Reinhart and Rogo acknowledge the potential for reverse causality, i.e., that weak economic growth may increase debt by reducing tax revenue and increasing public expenditures. RR 2010a and 2010b, however, make clear that the implied direction of causation runs from public debt to GDP growth.

But the question of direction matters a lot.  Consider a country whose GDP weakens–both tax revenues fall and social spending (on things like unemployment insurance) rises.  This means that in the absence of a policy change, weak GDP leads to higher debt.

There is a simple way to take a first cut at the question of direction of causation–by using a technique known as Granger Causality.  The set up is to try to explain something (such as GDP growth) by looking at its own lagged values and the lagged values of another variable (such as debt-to-GDP ratio).  I took the  data set in Herndon, Ash and Pollen and ran Granger tests using one lag explaining real GDP growth and debt-to-GDP ratios; I ran separate regressions for each country in the data set. I tested for significance at the 90 percent level of confidence.  I am happy to share my results with anyone who is interested (richarkg@usc.edu).

In the tests where I was exploring whether debt-to-GDP “caused” GDP growth, I found that debt’s impact was negative in five countries (Austria, Germany,Italy, Japan and Portugal); positive in four countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway), and zero in 11 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US; although France was close to being statistically negative).

RR emphasize that there is a critical point at which debt becomes toxic, and that is at a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 90 percent.  Doing Granger tests using this variable (on “on-off switch” for a country being at greater than 90 percent), we find that the impact of greater than 90 percent debt on GDP growth is positive in two cases (Australia and New Zealand), and is not statistically different from zero in eight cases (Belgium, Canada, Greece, Ireland, Japan, the UK and the US).  Ten countries have not had debt-to-GDP ratios above 90 percent.

When we look in the other direction, however, the impact of GDP growth on debt is negative 12 times (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, and Sweden) and is not statistically different from zero in the eight other countries (Canada, France, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the US).  Reverse causality IS a big issue here, and until it is really sorted out, we can’t say what the true, structural relationship between GDP and debt really is.

The eclipse of real estate

Is the end near ?

In the first quarter of 2012, direct investments in real estate in the world fell by 21% compared to the same period last year. The data have been published by the Consulting Agency Jones Lang Lasalle; the flow of global capital allocated to the sector decreased despite only in the USA there has been a 

+25% and +52% in Canada in the year. Poor performances for Europe, Asia and Middle East.

According to Juan Manuel Ortega, director of capital markets for Jones Lang Lasalle Spain, "this year will be dominated by the reactions of governments to the continuing economic uncertainty, subject to international investors continue forward. We also anticipate that the continued deleveraging banking attract more capital funds seeking opportunities in debt and assets used in the U.S. and Europe."

At the level of large investments the offices market is the one that pulls the rest, with a 54% of the total. Also the industrial sector showed improvement, while the residential is the worse.

< News source: ElConfidencial >

< Image source: http://randomtechie27.deviantart.com/art/Eclipse-303550050 >

Unrestored homes purchase +83%. Fashion is a ruin

The new trend of real estate, ruined houses for a market in crisis

They are called fixer-upper, more commonly slums, houses in poor condition sometimes to be rebuilt almost from scratch are the latest trend when it comes to real estate in New York.

The trend is becoming increasingly popular due to the decline of the houses on the market and lower prices of the houses in ruins, convenient despite the costs that the restructuring.

Jonathan Miller, head of the real estate firm Miller Samuel, told the New York Times that the purchase of housing conditions as "poor or very poor" rose in the City by 83% from December 2011 to December 2012.

"The properties for sale in Manhattan fell by 34% from the fourth quarter of 2011 - said Miller - touching its lowest level for 12 years now, and that's why those who want to buy a home has become more flexible."

Some giants of real estate, as Corcoran and Brown Harris Stevens, who first proposed not to customers homes in poor condition have decided to change its policy.

And search engines are emerging as RealDirect.com that allow users to perform ad hoc research, entering as keywords terms 'unrenovated', ie not refurbished, and 'needs work', needs restoration.

"Many people, especially in recent months, prefer a place to rebuild from scratch, a home created by them one hundred percent rather than made according to the tastes of someone else" said Doug Perlson, CEO of RealDirect.

Among those who chose to marry the new philosophy there are, for example, Laura Jacobs, a writer, and her husband James Wolcott, cultural critic for Vanity Fair.

The couple decided to buy a house for $ 750,000 in Washington Heights after selling the apartment where they lived for 1.36 million dollars.

"We knew that we would have spent at least $ 200,000 for the renovation, but the space was huge - they explained to the NYT - we were certain that the result would be what we wanted."

Even Corey Reese, attorney for Estee Lauder for nine years for rent in Chelsea, bought a 'slum' to turn on 24th Street, for $ 789,000,

"I saw an apartment in horrible conditions - he said - but I understood the potential: the view, the Art Deco style, the brightness. And finally - he added - the ability to have a real kitchen."

The Italian real estate market crisis, merciless numbers

Translation of an interesting article from the Italian web based newspaper Nove da Firenze .

The figures released by FIAIP are really discouraging: in Italy in the period 2007-2012 real estate sales were down by as much as 40%. In the past year house prices also showed a decrease of 12% (25% if we compare the average prices of the previous year with those of 2008.).

And common clichés that keep the industry afloat we have thought in the past few years the only luxury properties, and this both in Italy and internationally.

According to the findings in the recent MEETIN - a real estate meeting in Naples, for example, this assumption seems confirmed in the Southern Italy.

Over the last five years, sales and construction of new buildings have declined by 40%, sales of larger apartments and luxury properties in the most prestigious neighborhoods of Naples (Posillipo, Vomero, Chiaia) has instead maintained.

The same goes for real estate on the Sorrento coast, who have not registered even the declines in sales prices.

Of the first opinions in contrast seem to come from the Northern Italy, and in particular from Milan.

According writes Joan Valsecchi on Immobiliare.it News, it seems that even the high end of the market - which had not previously been the least affected by the crisis - is starting to feel a bit 'hit: properties of prestige of Milan in fact, would arrive at the cost 20-25% less than it was five years ago.

And if we can not speak of a real crisis, however, would seem obvious signs of some slowdown in the luxury market.

It seems that at this time the only ones who can afford the expense of a certain kind - we speak of digits that can even exceed € 19,000 per square meter - are entrepreneurs belonging to sectors that are resisting more to the crisis, such as fashion or telephone for example, or the super-rich from Russia or the Arab states.

To confirm the trend, in some way, there are also data published on 6 March by Osservatorio Residenze Esclusive (Observatory of Exclusive Residences), sponsored by Tirelli & Partners, and for the second half of 2012 in the cities of Milan and Rome.

According to these data luxury properties are struggling to find buyers, and so stretch of the days of sale.

According Casa24Plus for example, in Milan, for homes with a value of more than € 7,000 per square meter, the average selling now would exceed 16 months (in 2010 were less than one year).

We wanted to explore the question also heard the opinion of Dimitri Corti, CEO of Lionard Exclusive Real Estate, a Pistoia (Tuscany) estate agency specializing in selling luxury real estate in Italy.

According to D. Corti there is not actually a real braking because the Italian sellers are basically willing to consider offers also much lower, while still allowing you to get to the final sale.

Confirms instead the fact that buyers come almost exclusively from countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Kazakhstan.

We are then told that Tuscany is by far one of the most sought after, not only in Italy but also in the whole Europe.

Please follow me to Forbes

I am at http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardgreen/2013/03/13/california-has-a-shortage-of-rental-housing/.

Greece for sales: Athens sells 28 public buildings.

Among the buildings, offices of ministries, public bodies and the police headquarters.

After months of unnecessary delay, which among other things are often caused irritation of the representatives of the international creditors of Greece, the National Agency for the Promotion of Property of the State (Taiped, privatization agency), has announced yesterday the international tender for the sale and leaseback by the state, 28 state-owned buildings that are now offices of government departments, public bodies and even the police headquarters in Athens.

Properties for sale will be divided into two groups of 14 properties each, while the total rents that derive, according to the Taiped, will amount to approximately 30 million euro per year. The time for submission of tenders from interested parties expires next April 19.

With regard to the period of leaseback,the State may recover any property at the market price after about 20-25 years. According to officials of Taiped, the problem for the sale of real estate is not a lack of buyers willing to invest, but the fall in prices, as the sale comes at a time of severe economic crisis that has already caused a serious decline in the value of the property .

As financial advisors have been appointed to the Taiped Alphabank, the Eurobank Equities Investment, the National Bank and the Bank of Piraeus.

Why not worry about the deficit right now?

Because if I did my math right, Federal Government interest payments are at a long-term low relative to GDP. [Update, after looking more closely, I see that the source of the data--the US Treasury--includes state and local interest payments as well]. Consider the chart below:

Federal Government Interest Expense on Debt Outstanding Relative to GDP

The numerator is annual Federal Government interest payments, which come from here.  I am pretty sure these numbers are in nominal dollars.  The denominator comes from the BEA, and is in nominal dollars. Years are fiscal years.

Note that interest rates would have to double for us to be in the situation we were in the late 1980s, the end of the (ahem) Reagan Administration.  Do we ultimately need a steady state in which debt to GDP doesn't rise?  Absolutely.  Just not tomorrow.

Thud of the real estate market in Paris, shaking the prices of the safe of Europe



Is the future of Paris grey ?

Storm signals were on the horizon but the final amount were worse than expected. "Home sales in Paris, one of the world safest real estate markets, have fallen by 21% in one year" makes known the Chamber of Notaries of the Ile-de-france.

Throughout the region the decrease compared to 2011 was 13%. Is therefore just the capital to suffer the most, so that prices historically high and untouchable, begin to give little signs of abating. In one year the costs are decreased by 1%, but with a tendency to get worse. The square meter value is still really expensive with and average of  8270 euro even for normal houses, not luxury villas or castles.

According to data provided by notaries have been sold in the capital only 27,690 units. In the entire region instead the amount was 150,000. Of course, the proportion between the city and the common metropolitan area of Paris explain the difference, but the question remains: is this the end of the age of investor confidence or just an isolated incident?

In the Ile-de-france region lists value decrease was 1, 4% and the average price is now certified on 5510 euro per square meter. More convenient values 3,130 euro per sq m, are located in the so-called Grand Couronne .

The bigger houses? Are the Australian's

Australians have bigger

The United States are famous for their architectural excesses: the boundless city, towering skyscrapers, monumental houses. We also saw that the U.S. can boast at least six of the ten most expensive homes for sale in the world. But it is news not too long ago that Australians have escaped the "cousins" Americans another record: that of the larger houses

According to research commissioned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia National Institute of Statistics, for the first time in ten years the Australian houses of new construction have been awarded first place in the ranking of the larger houses in the world, thus relegating the new constructions American second 

The survey, conducted on individual homes and apartments completed in 2008-2009, shows just how the amplitude of Australian homes have increased by 10% in ten years, reaching an average of 214.6 square metersIn second place are the new American households, whose average size is decreased from 212 square meters to the existing 201.5 square meters. 

 Follow the case of New Zealand with an average of 196.2 square metersIn Europe, the larger homes can be found in Denmark (137 square meters, data Policy Exchange 2005), which in fact occupies the fourth position in the world rankings prepared by CommSec. Italy is the second lowest, with an average of 81.5 square meters.  English are the lowest (76 sqm).
 
If so Australia has the biggest houses in the world, which areas are the most important sizes? The national ranking is headed by the state of New South Wales (NSW), where the new buildings completed in 2008-2009 have a surface average of 262.9 square meters. For those who prefer smaller homes, the recommended destination is Tasmania, where the average size of new construction is "only" 190.6 sqm. 

The American People agree with George Orwell

This video presents what the American people consider to be the ideal wealth distribution.  At 2:47, the narrator notes that under this ideal distribution, "the wealthiest folks are about 10 to 20 times better off than the poorest Americans."

George Orwell in Why I Write:

2. Incomes. Limitation of incomes implies the fixing of a minimum wage, which implies a managed internal currency based simply on the amount of consumption goods available. And this again implies a stricter rationing scheme than is now in operation. It is no use at this stage of the world's history to suggest that all human beings should have exactly equal incomes. It has been shown over and over again that without some kind of money reward there is no incentive to undertake certain jobs. On the other hand the money reward need not be very large. In practice it is impossible that earnings should be limited quite as rigidly as I have suggested. There will always be anomalies and evasions. But there is no reason why ten to one should not be the maximum normal variation. And within those limits some sense of equality is possible. A man with Ј3 a week and a man with £1,500 a year can feel themselves fellow creatures, which the Duke of Westminster and the sleepers on the Embankment benches cannot.

Real Estate, optimism back with the Web: digital relocation

The new web frontier of real estate market, the dedicated real estate search engine

According to a survey, the benefits in terms of efficiency of the use of the Web for real estate portals are characterized by rapidity in providing timely information to customers, the ability to keep up with the competition and meet the demands of the market with significant time savings and money.

 

The web marketing can very well replace the obsolete forms of traditional advertising, such as newspapers and magazines, which in addition to being inefficient, requiring large amounts of money.

From the point of view of the purchasers, not only are praised all the characteristics of a digital communication, but also the speed to be able to take advantage of an estate portal in order to submit their ad, to be viewed also from a wider range of customers and international at affordable prices.

 

With the increasingly widespread use of search portals property changes the relationship with the customer that easily with one click can search for the home of your dreams in all parts of the world.
 

The advertisements have all the necessary information accompanied by images and videos so as to provide all the details needed for a distance vision.

The popularity of smartphones, tablets and laptops has facilitated this type of interaction, and to guarantee the freedom and time savings potential customer.

 

An excellent example of real estate search engine comes from Italy with Cercacasa.

 

Cercacasa.it is the first professional portal for the promotion of the buildings designed and built by real estate professionals and also managed according to the logic social oriented. A portal opened to the potential of Web 2.0. Experience of more than 12,000 industry professionals get the most innovative solution for the management of its real estate reality and integration with fellow real estate agents located throughout the world, which will allow you to quickly find a property meets your needs.

 

The site was created under the auspices of Fiaip, Italian Federation of Professional Real Estate Agents, which has always worked to make more ethical and transparent real estate market.

Tips for Buying Real Estate Online

The Internet has changed modern life in many ways, including the way that people buy and sell real estate. From real estate broker websites to personal blogs on real estate, there is tons of online information for potential buyers to utilize. Though most people already use the internet to search for homes listed for sale, there are some other things that can be done to get even more value out of shopping for real estate online.


Compare Homes

Online shopping allows people to compare homes side by side from the comfort of their own home. Though nothing replaces an actual property viewing, an online look at a home is a low stress environment that allows buyers to view the home without the pressure of a broker or other shoppers. The Internet also allows buyers to simultaneously look at similar homes in various areas. For example, an internet shopper can search for and compare all of the three bedroom homes with-in a 15 mile radius of his or her work.

Neighborhood

A residential or commercial real estate property is only as good as the neighborhood that surrounds it. The Internet allows a buyer to quickly learn about the neighborhood in which a real estate property is located. For example, a buyer can learn about the crime rate, the quality of area schools and the proximity of local stores and restaurants. Online mapping programs can even allow a remote buyer to view the local area from another location.

Research Values

There is often a vast difference between the asking price of a home and the actual selling price of a comparable home. An online shopper can quickly look up information on past selling prices for similar properties before viewing a home. With a smartphone, a buyer can even look up these prices while at a home or in a real estate broker's office. Having this information on hand at all times can help the buyer to negotiate the best deal possible.

Networking

The Internet allows a person to share information quickly and easily with people that they know. By posting on a social networking site that a person is interesting in buying a house or other real estate property, the buyer will let everyone know that he or she is in the market. This can help the buyer to uncover reel estate that is not yet listed, motivated sellers or for sale by owner properties that are often missed through traditional real estate searches.

Loan Acquisition

One of the most important parts of shopping for real estate is qualifying for a loan. The Internet provides shoppers with access to lenders all across the country that can best meet the buyer's unique needs. For example, a buyer with credit problems can use the Internet to find mortgage lenders willing to work with him or her to qualify for a loan. A buyer with good credit can also use the Internet to find the best deal on a mortgage loan which can result in thousands of dollars of savings over the life of the loan.
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