Editor’s Note

You’ve caught me grumpily wondering how to reset the hour on my microwave the morning after Daylight Savings Time ended. Is there a better symbol of government by inertia than this pointless, twice-annual ritual that nobody wants but never goes away?

Now that I’ve shared that bah-humbug moment with you, let’s move on to something truly worth your time: a preview of the latest issue of the Milken Institute Review.

Brad DeLong, an economist at UC, Berkeley, acknowledges that globalization has left collateral damage in its wake, but reminds us that it has done (and will continue to do) far more good than harm. “The most visible fruits of this economic integration – the flood of high quality, inexpensive products available online or at your nearest big box store – no longer seem worth the cost in terms of job insecurity and growing corporate power,” he writes. “But I’m betting that the de-integration of global markets will not go far because too many fundamentals are working too strongly against it.”

Kathryn Edwards, a labor economist and columnist for Bloomberg, takes a long, hard look at government unemployment insurance and wonders how it got so bad. “Unemployment insurance in America has been in reform purgatory for five decades, slowly deteriorating in effectiveness and integrity until reaching crisis levels,” she writes, “But fixing UI by clearing away the underbrush of inequity and perverse incentives would not be easy even if there was a political consensus about the goals and methods of change.”

Jonathan Gruber, chair of the MIT economics department, and Peter Passell (yup, me) explain that gig workers deserve the same labor force protections as 9-5 workers, but acknowledge that’s easier wished for than managed. “Gig workers, everyone from the local handyperson who plows your driveway in winter to the copyeditor who spared the authors of this article the embarrassment of errors in grammar, have always been part of the American labor force,” they write. “But the issue of who’s a gig worker grew sharply in importance with the arrival of major digital platform businesses and the proliferation of startups seeking (in Mark Zuckerberg’s words) to ‘move fast and break things.’ ”

“The obvious fix would be to encourage (or mandate) provision of equivalent benefits,” they continue. “But employers typically provide these benefits to their full-time workers only after some period of attachment to the firm. What’s more, while gig workers generally wouldn’t say no to benefits, some would certainly balk if (as economists predict) employers managed to shift the added cost to them by reducing their cash compensation.”

Simon Haeder of Texas A&M’s School of Public Health wonders just how much will be accomplished in terms of savings by giving Medicare the limited capacity to negotiate drug prices. “The government estimated that the newly set prices on 10 drugs will benefit nine million patients with Medicare coverage and reduce government spending by $6 billion,” Haeder writes. “But we don’t quite know how accurate the $6 billion figure is because we do not really know what Medicare paid for the 10 drugs prior to the negotiations. Moreover, Big Pharma seems confident that the ‘reduced’ prices will not affect their bottom lines in a major way. And Wall Street agrees: drugmakers’ stocks have not taken a hit.”

Yuliya Panfil and Tim Robustelli, analysts at the New America think tank, voice their frustrations with the reality that Americans at greatest risk from climate change are doing little to move out of harm’s way. “In the coming decades, climate change will likely force up to 50 million Americans to leave their homes,” they write. To date, though, victims are “choosing to stay in place and rebuild, despite the continued physical and financial risk. Or they are moving to nearby neighborhoods and towns just as vulnerable to climate change.”

Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College, surveys the consequences of a slew of court decisions limiting the power of the NCAA cartel and thereby allowing college athletes to earn substantial endorsement income while still in school. “On first (and maybe even second) glance, those pressing to undermine the NCAA’s control of sports that generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue have a solid case,” Zimbalist writes. “What’s missing thus far, though, is a sense of what will replace the wounded leviathan once it has lost its dominance.”

Edward Tenner, a research affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, swims against the tide of criticism of university faculty tenure labeling it inequitable and inefficient. “Absurdly generous as it appears to many nonacademics,” writes Tenner (who, incidentally, doesn’t have tenure), “the option makes economic sense to institutions as well as to anointed faculty. Indeed, the issue is deeply entangled in the complexities of deciding what universities’ priorities are and how to pay for them.”

Wait: don’t turn the page just yet. In this issue, we’re delighted to include an excerpt of Elisabeth Braw’s new book, Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World. Striking contrast to Brad DeLong’s defense of the much-maligned institution.

Happy perusing. — Peter Passell