The UK is learning how important it is to have market power in FTA negotiations. When the entire EU (28 countries) negotiated FTAs with non-member countries, they were able to insist on basic human rights standards. No so anymore as Britain is trying to renegotiate its own agreements. The Guardian reports that “Britain has received demands to roll back its human rights standards in exchange for progress on post-Brexit trade deals…” Even countries like Japan and Korea are in no hurry to sign trade deals and demand additional economic concessions. So far, only the UK has rolled over just £16bn out of £117bn in trade deals (link).

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Depite strong income (GDP) growth in 2018 and increases government spending tax revenues were flat, thanks to the huge Trump tax cut (mostly for corporations).  Menzi Chinn highlights a real puzzle: Why are term spreads (10yr -3mo Treasury Bill Spreads) falling as the deficit is rising? ON TOP OF THAT, demand for treasuries in general seems to be falling (although it would be interesting to see the graph disaggregated by 10yr and 3mo terms). Figure 1: 10 year-3 month Treasury spread (blue), structural budget deficit as a share of potential GDP (red). Orange shading denotes Trump administration. Source: Federal Reserve, CBO, Budget and Economic Outlook, and Chinn’s calculations.Figure 2: Foreign and international holdings of US Treasurys (blue) and Federal Reserve holdings (red), both as a share of potential GDP. Source: BEA, CBO, and Chinn’s calculations.

Brad W. Setser digs into the details. 

From Wiki: In statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is a type of interval estimate, computed from the statistics of the observed data, that might contain the true value of an unknown population parameter. The CI has an associated confidence level that, loosely speaking, quantifies the level of confidence that the parameter lies in the interval.

More strictly speaking, the CI represents the frequency (i.e. the proportion) of possible confidence intervals that contain the true value of the unknown population parameter. If confidence intervals are constructed for a given confidence level from an infinite number of independent sample statistics, the proportion of those intervals that contain the true value of the parameter will be equal to the confidence level.

Menzi Chinn highlights what a Confidence Intervals is not:

The specific 95 % confidence interval presented by a study has a 95 % chance of containing the true effect size. No!

A reported confidence interval is a range between two numbers. The frequency with which an observed interval (e.g., 0.72–2.88) contains the true effect is either 100 % if the true effect is within the interval or 0 % if not; the 95 % [confidence interval] refers only to how often 95 % confidence intervals computed from very many studies would contain the true size, if all the assumptions used to compute the intervals were correct. [A polite way of saying, if your statistical model is garbage, your confidence interval is garbage, too. Garbage in Garbage Out.] It is possible to compute an interval that can be interpreted as having 95 % probability of containing the true value; nonetheless, such computations require not only the assumptions used to compute the confidence interval, but also further assumptions about the size of effects in the model. These further assumptions are summarized in what is called a prior distribution, and the resulting intervals are usually called Bayesian posterior (or credible) intervals to distinguish them from confidence intervals. Source: Greenland et al. (2016).

“Northern Economics Inc” provided an economic impact study of the Washington Shellfish Industry: Over 2500 jobs created, over $250 million in output and labor income. 

Note that these gains are largely private, that is, they accrue to private individuals such as workers or business proprietors. What the study does not mention are the costs, most of them public. Cliff Mass at the UW, summarizes the harrowing costs outlined in the must-read book “Toxic Pearl” (The Kindle version from Amazon is only $5.99))                                               

Here is the abstract from Mass’ blogpost: The book describes

• Poisoning of Washington State’s shorelines by some members of the shellfish industry.
• Spraying of herbicides and pesticides over State shorelines from Puget Sound to Willapa Bay,
• Spread of plastic pollution,
• Physical destruction of shorelines areas.
• Cooperation of WA Department of Ecology and Natural Resources officials and even the Governor’s office with the shellfish industry, and even the participation of the State’s educational institutions like WSU and the UW. Apparently The WA State Departments of Ecology and Natural Resources have supported the use of pesticides to kill the native burrowing shrimp.

For decades, this industry, sprayed the pesticide Carbaryl, a powerful neurotoxin (also known as Sevin) around Willapa Bay and other local shore areas to kill a Washington State native animal, the burrowing shrimp.  Burrowing shrimp are an important food source for many native species including fish, birds, and crabs.

Some members of the shellfish industry are also spraying herbicides such as imazamox  over the coastal zone to kill eel grasse to make it easier for the industrial clam and oyster operations.  Such grasses are important source of food for wildlife and provide habitat for a wide variety of species.  More recently, some in the shellfish industry is pushing to spray ANOTHER neurotoxin (Imidacloprid) over our coastal waters.   And, chasing the high-value Chinese market for geoducks, the industry is putting in miles of cut-off plastic tubes with plastic netting over mudflats around the region, resulting in the dispersal of plastic pollution throughout our coastal environment (see picture below).
Toxic Pearl also documents sickness and illness following the spraying, and reviews the association of spraying with a large increase of miscarriages among the Shoalwater Bay Tribe.

In 2015, Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times wrote an important article outlining the herbicide/pesticide spraying by the WA shellfish industry, but some of the clam/oyster folks are still spraying herbicides and pushing to spray Imidacloprid.

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Would increasing household income lead to increased voter participation?Econofact mentions a recent study that involved a natural experiment: unexpected and permanent increase in household incomes.  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina opened a Casino and households enjoyed a windfall increase in income that was unrelated to education, disabilities, income level, marital status or the presence of children (each adult received $4,700/year). The increase in income did not have an effect on parents’ voting behavior, however, it did increase their children’s voting behavior. Children benefiting (indirectly) from the cash transfers had higher levels of education, which suggests that the subsequent increase in voting. Another possible is that families who received the income windfall were less likely to move, which helped students education attainments or their families’ civic participation.

In what seems to be a curious public relations stunt, the US farmers are financing a public relations website called tariffshurt.com. It reports that the Pittsburgh based non-profit called “Cribs for Kids” had to reduce the amount of cribs it could provide to US moms in need.

Tariffhurts.com also quantifies the cost of Trump tariffs on each state’s economy (sadly no methodology was provided). Here is the impact on Washington State: