Category Archives: Setting Economic Priorities

Financial Report of the U.S. Government

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The report is here. It looks interesting, but I find it difficult to parse. Liqun Liu, Andrew J. Rettenmaier, and Thomas R. Saving parse it this way:

The liabilities reported in the FRUSG at this time last year included $12 trillion in debt held by the public, $6.5 trillion in federal civilian and military employees’ accrued pension benefits and other retirement and disability benefits, and $1.3 trillion in other liabilities, producing total liabilities of $19.9 trillion.

They point out that the liabilities for Social Security and Medicare seem suspiciously small, because the report acts as if these could be erased quickly with the stroke of a (legislative) pen. Technically, that is true, but realistically it is not. Instead, Liu, et al, propose to include benefits payable to current retirees.

Adding the $16 trillion in accrued Social Security and Medicare benefits payable to current retirees produces a total of $35.8 trillion in federal liabilities. These accrued Social Security and Medicare benefits are larger than the debt held by the public and are 45 percent of the total.

Pointer from James Pethokoukis.

This is still not very satisfying.

1. The liabilities to pay benefits to those of us not yet eligible ought to be included.

2. If we are going to include future government expenditures as liabilities, then we ought to include future tax revenues as assets.

3. We ought to use a discounted present value concept, rather than treat dollars that will be spent or received 10 years from now as equal to dollars that will be spent or received today.

Conceptually, I believe that what we want is a present discounted value of assets (including future tax revenues) and liabilities under current law (or what CBO projects law to be under its more-plausible “alternative scenario”). You can then look at the change in these values from year to year as an accrual-accounting measure.

Slowing Medical Innovation

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Scott W. Atlas has the bad news.

The CEO of one of the largest health-care companies in America recently told me that the device tax his company paid last year exceeded his company’s entire R&D budget. Already a long list of companies—including Boston Scientific , Stryker and Cook Medical—have announced job cuts and plans to open new centers for R&D, manufacturing and clinical trials overseas.

The bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration are also hindering medical-technology and drug development. According to a 2010 survey of more than 200 medical-device companies by medical professor and entrepreneur Josh Makower and his colleagues at Stanford University, delays of approvals for new medical devices are now far longer in the U.S. than in many other developed countries. In the European Union—not exactly known for cutting through red tape—it takes on average seven months to gain approval for low- to moderate-risk devices. In the U.S., FDA approval for similar devices takes on average 31 months.

The FDA is no longer safe and effective.

Government Accounting

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Jason Delisle and Jason Richwine write,

the government’s official method for estimating cost is incomplete. It fails to incorporate the cost of the market risk associated with expecting future loan repayments. So-called “fair-value accounting,” an accounting method favored by the vast majority of finance economists as well as the CBO itself, factors in the cost of market risk. The difference transforms the official student-loan “profit” into a loss, for a budgetary swing of $279 billion over ten years. That figure demonstrates why the stakes are so high in the debate about fair-value accounting.

I recommend the entire essay. I would like to make changes to government accounting a top economic priority, because I think that avoiding a debt crisis ought to be a top priority.

If you ignore risk, then the government can appear to make a profit with all sorts of loans and loan-guarantee programs. I would go beyond fair-value accounting and subject the government budget to stress-testing, to give a measure of risk exposure.

Scott Sumner on a Basic Income

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He writes,

The problem with simple solutions is that poor people are just like everyone else–they’re complicated. And they have complicated problems.

That is why you do not want to try to solve poverty in a nation of 300 million people at a national level. A basic income is a partial answer. State and local governments and charities have to supply the rest of the answer.

Nick Rowe suggests a simple way to estimate the currently-feasible amount of a guaranteed annual income.

The Case for Replacing the FDA, Continued

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Beth Simone Noveck writes,

A study completed by the Boston Consulting Group points to a significant rise in the number of drugs and complex devices approved in the EU long before the United States. As devices get more complex, the United States is likely to fall further behind. Although the FDA does not issue clear data on backlogs or processing times, research points to shortcomings in our current system when it comes to researching and approving complex devices. This has broad implications for the quality of health care that Americans receive. In 2010, for example, the medical device company Biosensors International shut down its operations in California due to the time and expense associated with getting FDA approval for a cardiac stent. That device is available globally, including in Mexico and Canada.

She discusses a solution in which the FDA expands its pool of experts. I don’t think that this gets at the problem.

Joshua Gans on Apple Pay

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He writes,

This is why I think the resolution for the identification challenge is more significant. Last year, with the iPhone 5s, Apple finally got fingerprint recognition right. Last week I actually had to use a iPhone 5c for a few days without Touch ID and I couldn’t believe how much I had learned to rely on it. It really does work and you really do use it and it really is less hassle than a pin or even swiping to unlock the phone. But the security issues were not paramount but a fortunate side product.

Now they are paramount and what is more Touch ID solves the identification problem. It is really hard for criminals to spoof it or steal your identity using it. They would literally have to hold a gun to your head or take a hostage and, frankly, at that point, they are better off just robbing merchants directly.

U.S. credit cards are quite insecure. Biometric ID would seem to me to be a big improvement. Financial intermediaries will still have to put in back-up security measures, so that somebody who figures out how to copy your fingerprint is not able to make unlimited purchases. But I see phone-based payment technology as leapfrogging the current European model of more-secure credit cards.

Incidentally, I want an i-Watch, as long as it can use Google Maps as input. It would make bicycle navigation easier, but not with the crummy default maps app. Since the product won’t be available for a few months, and it since it won’t be biking weather for a few months after that, there is time to see how it develops.

I Wish I Knew More About This

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From Technology Review.

Heimerl’s innovation comes in a gray box roughly the size of a microwave oven. It has solar panels on the outside to power cellular equipment inside, along with the software for management functions like billing and analytics. Secure the box somewhere and link it via satellite to a voice-over-IP network, and you’re ready to open shop as a mobile service provider. Heimerl’s nascent company, Endaga, sells it for $10,000

…Just one hitch: it’s illegal. Regional mobile providers hold licenses to the necessary airwaves. Indonesian officials were willing to look the other way, but in general, regulation is a significant hurdle for Heimerl’s vision of universal access. To resolve that issue, he has helped develop a “white space” workaround that occupies unused radio frequencies until another network needs them.

The Endaga company web site does not tell me much.

Health Policy Proposals

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From a RAND paper.

The first five options would decrease costs and risks of inventing new products or
obtaining regulatory approval for products that would advance our two policy goals.

1. enabling more creativity in funding basic science
2. offering prizes for inventions
3. buying out patents
4. establishing a public interest investment fund
5. expediting FDA review.

The last five options would increase the market rewards for inventing products
that would advance our two policy goals. These options are
1. reforming Medicare payment policies
2. reforming Medicare coverage policies
3. coordinating FDA approval and CMS coverage processes
4. increasing demand for products that decrease spending
5. producing more and more-timely technology assessments.

Pointer from Timothy Taylor, who comments

I confess that as I look over their list of policy recommendations, I’m not sure they suffice to overcome the incentives currently built into the U.S. healthcare system.

Spectrum Price Discrimination Using Zero-rated Apps

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The Washington Post reports,

Apps and Web sites that don’t count against the users’ data plan are popping up both in the United States and abroad, often under names like Wikipedia Zero or Facebook Zero.

Pointer from Tyler Cowen.

If what wireless companies need is congestion-pricing or peak-load pricing, then my prediction would be that we will not see zero-rated apps that allow video anywhere, any time. To get that, you will have to pay something.

There is now a vocal “net neutrality” chorus that will fight any form of price discrimination in wireless services, including fighting zero-rated apps. I think that they are misguided and represent no actual consumers. However, the FCC will do everything to make them seem important, because that in turn justifies having the FCC do more regulatory meddling.