San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 2010 by Joe Garofoli and Carla Marinucci
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/20/MNN71DHGPO.DTL
A capital gains tax cut might stimulate the economy (with investors selling assets) but wouldn’t necessarily stimulate job growth, said Alan Auerbach, professor of economics and law at UC Berkeley.
KTVU-TV, May 5, 2010 by Tori Campbell
http://www.ktvu.com/news/23469913/detail.html
“It may be an issue of trying not to live beyond your means, there may also be an issue of not understanding,” said Alan Auerbach…. “It may be in this case the products that were being sold and the people who were purchasing it were less sophisticated than the people who were selling them.”
Inside Higher Ed, April 21, 2010 by Scott Jaschik
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/21/econ
“Everyone in the field knows that there are a handful of journals that everyone uses,” he said, so no one would be offended by receiving a rejected paper from AER. “We are in the same association and don’t view ourselves as directly competing, so we thought that this kind of interaction would be in everybody’s interest,” he said. “It reduces the redundancy of review efforts and the turnaround time.”
The Sacramento Bee, April 19, 2010 by Kevin Yamamura
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/19/2688057/capital-gains-tax-cuts-turns-into.html
“You might get back as much as half the revenue you lose, but I could also argue that you would get back less than that,” Auerbach said. “There is uncertainty over how much you get back, but there is not any convincing evidence you will get it all back.”
KQED-FM, The California Report, April 14, 2010 by John Myers
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201004140850/a
While we do think that taxpayers both in households and businesses respond to tax cuts, we generally don’t think that the response is strong enough to provide this kind of complete offset.
San Francisco Chronicle, April 5, 2010 by Carolyn Lochhead
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/05/MNI21COVR1.DTL&type=printable
“The real problem is not just current deficits but where we’re heading,” Auerbach said. “We’re on a trajectory where the deficit’s going to go down a little and then go up again. And we have no solution for that.”
Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2010 by Shane Goldmacher
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tax-breaks27-2010mar27,0,4624330.story
“If you’re guessing wrong about the scope of the credit and it turns out it applies to a lot more investments than you thought . . . you may end up losing a lot of money,” said Auerbach, the Berkeley economist.
San Francisco Chronicle, March 13, 2010 by Carolyn Said and Tom Abate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/13/MN5E1CF0A0.DTL&type=printable
“One of the concerns whenever an academic is appointed is, ‘Does this person know anything about how the world operates?'” said Alan Auerbach. “In Janet Yellen’s case, that’s not much of a concern given how involved she’s been in Washington over the years. It’s hard to imagine a better appointment.”
The New York Times, Economix Blog, February 18, 2010 by Catherine Rampell
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/inflation-wont-solve-our-debt-problems/
Sudden inflation can only inflate away the debt that is (1) not indexed, the way TIPS are; and (2) not very short term (i.e., not T-bills), so that the interest rates cannot be reset to much higher rates that would compensate for inflation. Also, there is no net gain to inflating away debt held within the government (e.g., the Social Security trust fund, etc.).
The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2010 by Mark Whitehouse
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126255761275914079.html#printMode (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)
“We’ve moved closer to the precipice, and the precipice has moved closer to us,” Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who has focused on U.S. government finances for about 15 years, said in an interview.