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（神猴插播~11系列的出勤数据（#38）已经统计出来了，想要了解自己上系列训练效率的，可以来查看~~让我们一起将阅读进行到底！ ）
强烈推荐今天的拓展阅读部分的文章——Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress！个人觉得文中推荐的方法相当有用！
最后祝大家阅读愉快~
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Maintaining a Unified Brand in a Fragmented World
by Dae Ryun Chang and Don Ryun Chang
How can brands nimbly navigate the difficult waters of increasingly fragmented markets? How can brand managers win back some of the control they have lost to consumers in the age of social media?
Take for instance the Gap logo fiasco. The company had to pull back its new logo in the face of intense online backlash from consumers who wanted to keep the old one. By contrast, Starbucks' rebranding and its new siren logo were mostly evaluated as a success. What then determines the hits and the misses in the new branding era?
The answer may lie in how well companies adopt a "transbranding" philosophy and management system.
"Trans" is derived from Latin and as a prefix means "across, on the far side, and beyond." We commonly use words like "transportation" and "transfer"; in both cases, "trans" connotes a bridging characteristic, whether it is between places, conditions, or people. Thus, transbranding is using brands to connect and effectively move between divergent markets.
Branding has always been an important part of marketing strategy, since many consumers use brand attributes to determine their purchasing decisions. The branding dialogue in the past was predominantly led by marketers, but in the digital era of today, that discussion is heavily influenced by other voices, such as by social networks. This results often in a varied and potentially conflicting narrative about a brand. Transbranding is a call for marketers to retake the initiative in integrating the communication of their brands across offline and online domains.
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Companies or people that are successfully pioneering transbranding demonstrate some key "trans" qualities in the following ways:
1. They are transitional. Sometimes a company and its branding has to evolve to align itself with its changing market environment. When this happens brands have to provide strong leadership to make sure its loyal consumers do not feel lost by radical changes, such as by an unexpected new logo. Whereas the Gap stranded their old customers with their new brand identity, Starbucks initiated a longer, integrated, and open effort to help their partners and patrons to transition to the rebranding effort. More specifically, by keeping the siren, Starbucks signaled that the familiar retail experience would continue. But importantly, by omitting "Starbucks Coffee" in the logo, it communicated that its business also consisted of non-coffee categories — in the present and possibly more in the future.
2. They are transcendent. Instead of just catering to the idiosyncratic demands of the micro-segments created by new media, brands should also try to aggregate consumers by finding an appeal that can transcend market differences. The HBR blog about Gangnam style discusses how a video sang almost entirely in Korean nevertheless became a global viral sensation because, at the core, the music, the humorous visual content, and the artist Psy himself were all universally liked. Brands, too, have to search for that kind of power to attract across seemingly variant markets.
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3. They are transformable. With digital domains, like smartphone apps, becoming a new and important battleground, branding elements now need to be visible in a much smaller or dynamic setting. Case in point: DC comics now uses a "living identity," where its new peelable logo reveals its many superheroes. Whereas its former identity was singular and static, the new malleable brand ID can be flexibly fit to properties, characters, and media, such as in digital devices, where consumers can playfully interact with it.
4. They are transparent. Domino's Pizza created a stir by conducting a bold campaign where it openly discussed the consumer dissatisfaction and quality issues facing the brand and how it was going to overcome them. Brand transparency is important in honestly addressing consumer complaints, especially since, when left alone, they can be spread quickly on social networks. Companies, however, need to determine the proper level of brand transparency by weighing its impact on other branding factors, including trust, mystique, storytelling, and surprise.
While it is true that the changed media landscape has made life difficult for marketers, the good news here is that a transbranding mind-set can help managers cross over the old-school and new-school branding divide.
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Tax Plan Is Popular, but Not Quite Fair
By JAMES B. STEWART
Mitt Romney may have lost in November, but the ghost of the Republican presidential candidate lives on in the debate over tax reform and the fiscal cliff.
Mr. Romney’s proposal to limit itemized deductions to a fixed dollar amount, which surfaced during the campaign as a way to close loopholes for the wealthy and broaden the tax base, has attracted a surprising amount of bipartisan support, given its origins in conservative Republican circles.
“There’s renewed interest” in the cap on deductions, Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who heads the Senate Budget Committee, told The Times last month as budget negotiations heated up.
The political appeal of a proposal that limits deductions without actually naming any — inciting the powerful interests and lobbyists that support them — seems obvious. But many tax experts said that a fixed dollar cap is anything but the evenhanded approach to closing loopholes it appears to be.
Moreover, without addressing larger tax preferences, like a lower rate on capital gains, it does almost nothing to cure the so-called Buffett problem, in which Warren Buffett’s secretary pays a higher effective rate than her billionaire boss. It doesn’t even raise much revenue.
Some tax experts have gone so far as to say it’s a conservative Trojan horse, a stealth tactic that protects the very wealthy while targeting Democrats who itemize deductions and live disproportionately in high-tax states like New York and California. It would also affect donors who support elite colleges, universities, museums — even experimental theater — which are perceived as havens for liberals.
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And it would hit people like me: taxpayers in higher brackets who rely on earned income as opposed to investment income or an inheritance, who give to charity and live in a high-tax state. Assuming a $35,000 limit on itemized deductions, my federal tax last year would have risen to 27 percent of my adjusted gross income, from 22 percent.
I wouldn’t mind paying more as long as people who make vastly more did, too. But limiting the itemized deductions of the top 400 taxpayers with an average adjusted gross income of $202 million in 2009 (the most recent year available) would have raised their taxable income by an average of $32 million and their average rate to 25 percent from 20 percent, assuming a marginal rate of 35 percent, and even less if they pay a lower marginal rate, as most do.
That’s a lower rate than I paid, because nearly half their income, on average, was from capital gains.
Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is widely credited with the idea for an across-the-board cap on itemized deductions as a way to help lower the deficit. His proposal last year called for capping deductions at 2 percent of adjusted gross income.
Mr. Romney embraced the concept, but proposed a fixed dollar cap as low as $17,000 rather than a percentage. Since then, the idea has been embraced by politicians from both parties and the centrist research organization Third Way.
(The proposed cap on deductions shouldn’t be confused with President Obama’s proposed 28 percent cap on the rate at which deductions can be claimed by high-income taxpayers.)
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Despite its bipartisan support and seemingly neutral approach, it didn’t take long for the nonprofit sector to figure out that a fixed dollar cap on itemized deductions is a stake aimed at the heart of the charitable deduction. That’s because of the three largest itemized deductions — state and local taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions — only charitable contributions are entirely discretionary.
People have to pay state and local taxes, and in high-tax states like New York, Massachusetts and California, that deduction alone would reach the cap and in many cases exceed it, depending on where it’s set. Many people require a mortgage to own their homes, and are contractually obligated to repay it.
“No one wants to say, ‘Let’s kill the charitable deduction,’ but across-the-board limits would hit charitable deduction the hardest,” Eugene Steuerle, co-director of the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, told me this week. “And it’s a big mistake to think that only the wealthy would be affected. Many lower- and middle-income people go to churches, museums, hospitals and colleges. They’re the ones who are going to be hurt.”
Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, agreed.
“We haven’t empirically studied the effect of a Romney-style cap on deductions on charitable giving,” he said, “but this will certainly have a deleterious impact. Tax benefits aren’t the main reason people give, but charitable giving is sensitive to changes in marginal rates. And some charities will be more affected than others. Religious organizations tend to be less affected, because the donation may be a spiritual obligation. But colleges and universities, the arts, and in some cases hospitals, are right to be very concerned.”
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Leonard Burman, a tax expert at Syracuse University and co-author of the recent book, “Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know,” said that “most itemized deductions are of dubious merit — they don’t do much good, and they’re not well-targeted at providing assistance to people who really need it.”
But, he added, “Just about everyone agrees we should encourage charity.”
Even proponents of a limit on deductions have suggested some modifications. Since the election, Professor Feldstein has renewed his proposal for a cap at 2 percent of adjusted gross income, but now excludes from the cap charitable donations, untaxed health care benefits and untaxed municipal bond interest.
“Unlike most other deductions and exclusions, charitable gifts do not benefit the taxpayer,” he wrote this month in Foreign Affairs. “The increased giving generated by tax deductibility is important for maintaining private support for universities, churches, hospitals and cultural institutions.” (As a result, Professor Feldstein’s proposal wouldn’t have raised my 2011 taxes at all.)
Many conservatives and advocates of smaller government have embraced a cap on deductions because it would curtail the deduction for state and local taxes in high-tax states, and reduce their federal subsidy.
According to the Census Bureau, state taxes per capita in 2011 ranged from $3,491 in New York to $1,674 in South Dakota. For many higher-income taxpayers in high-tax states, state and local taxes alone would exceed the cap limit, completely depriving them of the mortgage and charitable deductions.
Whatever the public policy merits of the state and local tax deduction (and many tax experts are critical of it), it’s a politically charged issue, since high-tax states tend to be heavily Democratic. Of the top 10 highest-tax states, all but Texas and North Carolina supported President Obama.
Harvey Rosen, a Princeton economist who created a stir during the campaign when he offered academic support for Mr. Romney’s tax proposals, predicted that a cap would put pressure on high-tax states to lower their rates and spending.
“There’s empirical evidence consistent with this,” said Professor Rosen, who headed the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. “Jurisdictions with high tax rates tend to have bigger public sectors. To the extent the deduction is scaled back, it forces citizens to confront the true costs of their public sectors. And I happen to think that there’s no particular reason for people in low-tax states to be supporting people in high-tax states.”
Still, even though he said he supported the idea of a cap on deductions, he said it would be pointless if all it did was raise revenue without also lowering marginal rates. “If you have a revenue neutral tax reform, lower rates and get rid of deductions, I’d sign up,” he said.
Limiting itemized deductions for higher-income taxpayers while leaving marginal rates unchanged would raise revenue, but critics of the measure note that it’s a relatively paltry amount considering the total amount of tax expenditures — the term tax experts and economists prefer when analyzing the tax code.
Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, agreed.
“We haven’t empirically studied the effect of a Romney-style cap on deductions on charitable giving,” he said, “but this will certainly have a deleterious impact. Tax benefits aren’t the main reason people give, but charitable giving is sensitive to changes in marginal rates. And some charities will be more affected than others. Religious organizations tend to be less affected, because the donation may be a spiritual obligation. But colleges and universities, the arts, and in some cases hospitals, are right to be very concerned.”
Leonard Burman, a tax expert at Syracuse University and co-author of the recent book, “Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know,” said that “most itemized deductions are of dubious merit — they don’t do much good, and they’re not well-targeted at providing assistance to people who really need it.”
But, he added, “Just about everyone agrees we should encourage charity.”
Even proponents of a limit on deductions have suggested some modifications. Since the election, Professor Feldstein has renewed his proposal for a cap at 2 percent of adjusted gross income, but now excludes from the cap charitable donations, untaxed health care benefits and untaxed municipal bond interest.
“Unlike most other deductions and exclusions, charitable gifts do not benefit the taxpayer,” he wrote this month in Foreign Affairs. “The increased giving generated by tax deductibility is important for maintaining private support for universities, churches, hospitals and cultural institutions.” (As a result, Professor Feldstein’s proposal wouldn’t have raised my 2011 taxes at all.)
Many conservatives and advocates of smaller government have embraced a cap on deductions because it would curtail the deduction for state and local taxes in high-tax states, and reduce their federal subsidy.
According to the Census Bureau, state taxes per capita in 2011 ranged from $3,491 in New York to $1,674 in South Dakota. For many higher-income taxpayers in high-tax states, state and local taxes alone would exceed the cap limit, completely depriving them of the mortgage and charitable deductions.
Whatever the public policy merits of the state and local tax deduction (and many tax experts are critical of it), it’s a politically charged issue, since high-tax states tend to be heavily Democratic. Of the top 10 highest-tax states, all but Texas and North Carolina supported President Obama.
Harvey Rosen, a Princeton economist who created a stir during the campaign when he offered academic support for Mr. Romney’s tax proposals, predicted that a cap would put pressure on high-tax states to lower their rates and spending.
“There’s empirical evidence consistent with this,” said Professor Rosen, who headed the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. “Jurisdictions with high tax rates tend to have bigger public sectors. To the extent the deduction is scaled back, it forces citizens to confront the true costs of their public sectors. And I happen to think that there’s no particular reason for people in low-tax states to be supporting people in high-tax states.”
Still, even though he said he supported the idea of a cap on deductions, he said it would be pointless if all it did was raise revenue without also lowering marginal rates. “If you have a revenue neutral tax reform, lower rates and get rid of deductions, I’d sign up,” he said.
Limiting itemized deductions for higher-income taxpayers while leaving marginal rates unchanged would raise revenue, but critics of the measure note that it’s a relatively paltry amount considering the total amount of tax expenditures — the term tax experts and economists prefer when analyzing the tax code.
Tax expenditures are the revenue the federal government forgoes by exempting some income from taxation, and includes not just deductions but also preferential rates on capital gains and income and untaxed employee health care benefits. Mr. Steuerle estimates that total tax expenditures for 2015 will amount to $1.2 trillion, while itemized deductions will total $180 billion, or just 15 percent of total expenditures.
“It’s a mystery to me why the discussion has only focused on itemized deductions rather than capping total expenditures, like the preferential rate for capital gains and dividends,” William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, said. “Take capital gains. That should be a prime candidate for curtailing tax expenditures. You could apply a 15 percent rate to the first $50,000 and then raise it to 25 percent or even the level of ordinary income.”
And since so many wealthy people derive so much of their income from capital gains, such a measure would directly address the Buffett problem.
“Of course that would drive some very high income people nuts,” Mr. Gale said.
Republicans have strenuously opposed any increase in capital gains rates, and the notion that low rates on capital gains promotes economic growth is an article of faith for many conservatives, even though the empirical evidence is inconclusive.
President Obama has proposed raising the capital gains rate to 20 percent, which would still be a preferential rate for high-income taxpayers.
Mr. Steuerle said: “People don’t want to talk about tax preferences and exclusions. They don’t want to tackle capital gains and untaxed health care benefits. Itemized deductions are easier because they’re the first thing people see. They’re on the tax return. But legislators are really just dodging the real issues, which would be controversial and take a lot of work.”
Even though it would take more time, he said Congress should examine each category of tax expenditure and pass a comprehensive tax reform bill that makes sense in terms of policy and fairness.
“Almost all tax experts — left, right and independent — feel that the best way to reform government programs, whether hidden in the tax code or not, is to tackle each one on its own merits,” Mr. Steuerle said.
The proposed cap on deductions, he added, “is nothing but a simplistic solution to the very messy and convoluted tax system that they’ve created.”
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【拓展阅读】
Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress
by Heidi Grant Halvorson
Feeling stressed? Of course you are. You have too much on your plate, deadlines are looming, people are counting on you, and to top it all off, you still have holiday shopping to do. You are under a lot of pressure — so much that at times, you suspect the quality of your work suffers for it.
This is life in the modern workplace. It is more or less impossible to be any kind of professional these days and not experience frequent bouts of intense stress. The difference between those who are successful and those who aren't is not whether or not you suffer from stress, but how you deal with it when you do.
In the spirit of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, here are nine scientifically-proven strategies for defeating stress whenever it strikes.
1. Have self-compassion.
Self-compassion is, in essence, cutting yourself some slack. It's being willing to look at your mistakes or failures with kindness and understanding — without harsh criticism or defensiveness. Studies show that people who are self-compassionate are happier, more optimistic, and less anxious and depressed. That's probably not surprising. But here's the kicker: they are more successful, too. Most of us believe that we need to be hard on ourselves to perform at our best, but it turns out that's 100 percent wrong. A dose of self-compassion when things are at their most difficult can reduce your stress and improve your performance, by making it easier to learn from your mistakes. So remember that to err is human, and give yourself a break.
2. Remember the "Big Picture."
Anything you need or want to do can be thought of in more than one way. For instance, "exercising" can be described in Big Picture terms, like "getting healthier" — the why of exercising — or it can be described in more concrete terms, like "running two miles" — the how of exercising. Thinking Big Picture about the work you do can be very energizing in the face of stress and challenge, because you are linking one particular, often small action to a greater meaning or purpose. Something that may not seem important or valuable on its own gets cast in a whole new light. So when staying that extra hour at work at the end of an exhausting day is thought of as "helping my career" rather than "answering emails for 60 more minutes," you'll be much more likely to want to stay put and work hard.
3. Rely on routines.
If I ask you to name the major causes of stress in your work life, you would probably say things like deadlines, a heavy workload, bureaucracy, or your terrible boss. You probably wouldn't say "having to make so many decisions," because most people aren't aware that this is a powerful and pervasive cause of stress in their lives. Every time you make a decision — whether it's about hiring a new employee, about when to schedule a meeting with your supervisor, or about choosing rye or whole wheat for your egg salad sandwich — you create a state of mental tension that is, in fact, stressful. (This is why shopping is so exhausting — it's not the horrible concrete floors, it's all that deciding.)
The solution is to reduce the number of decisions you need to make by using routines. If there's something you need to do every day, do it at the same time every day. Have a routine for preparing for your day in the morning, and packing up to go home at night. Simple routines can dramatically reduce your experience of stress. In fact, President Obama, who assuredly knows a great deal about stress, mentioned using this strategy himself in a recent interview:
You need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day... You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia. –President Obama, Vanity Fair
4. Take five (or ten) minutes to do something you find interesting.
If there were something you could add to your car's engine, so that after driving it a hundred miles, you'd end up with more gas in the tank than you started with, wouldn't you use it? Even if nothing like that exists for your car just yet, there is something you can do for yourself that will have the same effect... doing something interesting. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as it interests you. Recent research shows that interest doesn't just keep you going despite fatigue, it actually replenishes your energy. And then that replenished energy flows into whatever you do next.
Keep these two very important points in mind: First, interesting is not the same thing as pleasant, fun, or relaxing (though they are certainly not mutually exclusive.) Taking a lunch break might be relaxing, and if the food is good it will probably be pleasant. But unless you are eating at the hot new molecular gastronomy restaurant, it probably won't be interesting. So it won't replenish your energy.
Second, interesting does not have to mean effortless. The same studies that showed that interest replenished energy showed that it did so even when the interesting task was difficult and required effort. So you actually don't have to "take it easy" to refill your tank.
5. Add where and when to your to-do list.
Do you have a to-do list? (If you have a "Task" bar on the side of your calendar, and you use it, then the answer is "yes.") And do you find that a day or a week (or sometimes longer) will frequently pass by without a single item getting checked off? Stressful, isn't it? What you need is a way to get the things done that you set out to do in a timely manner. What you need is if-then planning (or what psychologists call "implementation intentions").
This particular form of planning is a really powerful way to help you achieve any goal. Nearly 200 studies, on everything from diet and exercise to negotiation and time management, have shown that deciding in advance when and where you will complete a task (e.g., "If it is 4pm, then I will return any phone calls I should return today") can double or triple your chances of actually doing it.
So take the tasks on your to-do list, and add a specific when and where to each. For example, "Remember to call Bob" becomes "If it is Tuesday after lunch, then I'll call Bob." Now that you've created an if-then plan for calling Bob, your unconscious brain will start scanning the environment, searching for the situation in the "if" part of your plan. This enables you to seize the critical moment and make the call, even when you are busy doing other things. And what better way is there to cut down on your stress than crossing things off your to-do list?
6. Use if-thens for positive self-talk.
Another way to combat stress using if-then plans is to direct them at the experience of stress itself, rather than at its causes. Recent studies show that if-then plans can help us to control our emotional responses to situations in which we feel fear, sadness, fatigue, self-doubt, or even disgust. Simply decide what kind of response you would like to have instead of feeling stress, and make a plan that links your desired response to the situations that tend to raise your blood pressure. For instance, "If I see lots of emails in my Inbox, then I will stay calm and relaxed," or, "If a deadline is approaching, then I will keep a cool head."
7. See your work in terms of progress, not perfection
We all approach the goals we pursue with one of two mindsets: what I call the Be-Good mindset, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and that you already know what you're doing, and the Get-Better mindset, where the focus is on developing your ability and learning new skills. You can think of it as the difference between wanting to show that you are smart versus wanting to get smarter.
When you have a Be-Good mindset, you expect to be able to do everything perfectly right out of the gate, and you constantly (often unconsciously) compare yourself to other people, to see how you "size up." You quickly start to doubt your ability when things don't go smoothly, and this creates a lot of stress and anxiety. Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to ultimately fail.
A Get-Better mindset, on the other hand, leads instead to self-comparison and a concern with making progress — how well are you doing today, compared with how you did yesterday, last month, or last year? When you think about what you are doing in terms of learning and improving, accepting that you may make some mistakes along the way, you experience far less stress, and you stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur.
8. Think about the progress that you've already made.
"Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work." This is what Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer refer to as the Progress Principle — the idea is that it's the "small wins" that keep us going, particularly in the face of stressors.
Psychologically, it's often not whether we've reached our goal, but the rate at which we are closing the gap between where we are now and where we want to end up that determines how we feel. It can be enormously helpful to take a moment and reflect on what you've accomplished so far before turning your attention to the challenges that remain ahead.
9. Know whether optimism or defensive pessimism works for you.
For many of us, it's hard to stay positive when we've got assignments up to our eyeballs. For others, it isn't just hard — it feels wrong. And as it turns out, they are perfectly correct — optimism doesn't work for them.
It is stressful enough to try to juggle as many projects and goals as we do, but we add a layer of stress without realizing it when we try to reach them using strategies that don't feel right — that don't mesh with our own motivational style. So what's your motivational style, and is "staying positive" right for you?
Some people think of their jobs as opportunities for achievement and accomplishment — they have what psychologists call a promotion focus. In the language of economics, promotion focus is all about maximizing gains and avoiding missed opportunities. For others, doing a job well is about security, about not losing the positions they've worked so hard for. This prevention focus places the emphasis on avoiding danger, fulfilling responsibilities, and doing what feel you ought to do. In economic terms, it's about minimizing losses, trying to hang on to what you've got.
Understanding promotion and prevention motivation helps us understand why people can work so differently to reach the same goal. Promotion motivation feels like eagerness — the desire to really go for it — and this eagerness is sustained and enhanced by optimism. Believing that everything is going to work out great is essential for promotion-focused performance. Prevention motivation, on the other hand, feels like vigilance — the need to keep danger at bay — and it is sustained not by optimism, but by a kind of defensive pessimism. In other words, the prevention-minded actually work best when they think about what might go wrong, and what they can do to keep that from happening.
So, do you spend your life pursuing accomplishments and accolades, reaching for the stars? Or are you busy fulfilling your duties and responsibilities — being the person everyone can count on? Start by identifying your focus, and then embrace either the sunny outlook or the hearty skepticism that will reduce your stress and keep you performing at your best.
Put some or all of these strategies for fighting stress, and you will see real changes not only in the workplace, but in every area of your life. With the holidays around the corner, you might want to work on creating a few if-thens for dealing with the relatives, too. "If I'm about to lose my mind, then I'll have some more eggnog," works wonders for me.
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The Unemployment Rate and Central Bank Policy
Gary. S. Becker
Low inflation and “full” employment have been statutory goals of the Federal Reserve for the past 35 years. Often, however, inflation received the most attention, as when former Fed chairman Paul Volcker in the early 1980s sharply raised interest rates and put the economy in recession in order to wring inflationary expectations out of the system.
On December 12th, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, indicated that the Fed would pursue what one might think is simply a variant of the full employment target by keeping nominal interest rates close to zero until the US unemployment rate dips below 6.5%-it is currently 7.7%- or until inflation is forecast to exceed 2.5%. The challenge facing this proposal is that while an unemployment rate target may seem to be just the flip side of the full employment target, unemployment can be nudged by other government policies in ways that have little effect on employment.
The present high level of unemployment in the US in good measure reflects the slow rate of recovery of real GDP and employment from its recession levels. According to "Okun’s Law”, the recovery in employment from a recession is simply related to the recovery in real GDP (see the discussion of Okun’s Law in my blog post on 11/4/2012). Okun’s Law implies that a central bank can use the recovery in real GDP as a proxy for the recovery in employment toward a full employment goal.
If the change in the unemployment rate were simply the mirror image of the change in the employment rate, ”low” unemployment would be as good a target as full employment. That would imply that Okun’s Law could be stated as a relation between the decline in unemployment from recession levels and the recovery in real GDP from recession levels. Then the recovery in unemployment to its “full employment” level could meet the Fed’s goal of maintaining full employment (along with controlling inflation), as in Bernanke’s recent announced goal of no more than 6.5% unemployment.
The complication is that changes in unemployment rates during business cycles are not just mirror images of changes in employment rates. This has been especially the case during the Great Recession. By definition, the unemployed equals the difference between the number of persons in the labor force and the number of persons working. The unemployment rate is then defined as the number of individuals who are unemployed as a fraction of the labor force. It follows from the definition of unemployment that the unemployment rate equals one minus the employment rate (the ratio of the number of persons employed to the number of persons in the labor force). This relation shows that changes in the unemployment rate would be equal to but opposite in sign to changes in the employment rate only as long as the labor force remained fixed.
During business cycles, the employment rate and the unemployment rate do move in opposite directions, but the relation is far from one to one, especially during severe recessions. The reason is that the labor force also changes over the course of a business cycle. Especially during severe recessions, some workers get discouraged about finding jobs and leave the labor force. This would tend artificially to reduce the unemployment rate even when both employment and unemployment did not change. This is why the official unemployment rate is usually supplemented with measures of the “total” unemployment rate that include both individuals who got discouraged and withdraw from the labor force, as well as those working part time because they could not find full time jobs. This total unemployment rate now stands at 14.4%, much above the 7.7% official rate.
The official unemployment rate is also affected by public policies that encourage individuals to either leave the labor force or work only part time. These are partly policies that increase eligibility for means tested welfare programs, such as food stamps, subsidies on mortgage payments, and Medicaid benefits. These and other means-tested programs greatly expanded during the past four years (for a good discussion of the evidence on this, see Casey Mulligan’s recent book “The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy”).
The unemployment rate is also affected by policies that affect eligibility for unemployment compensation, such as the extension of unemployment benefits during this recession to 99 weeks. Such an extension increases unemployment because it encourages individuals to become or remain unemployed in order to collect unemployment benefits for a longer time. The net effect of extensions in unemployment benefits is to increase the unemployment rate differently from any decline in the employment rate.
This discussion implies that a shift by the Fed from a full employment target to an unemployment target could lead to some shift in the Fed’s goals. In addition, and most important, some of the causes of changes in the unemployment rate are not amenable to manipulation by the Fed through very low interest rates and the purchase of bonds or other assets. Unemployment rates will remain higher than in the past, regardless of Fed policies, as long as the extensions of various means-tested programs and of unemployment benefits during the past few years remain in effect.
A major risk of trying to implement an unemployment target through present Fed policies is that the inflation rate could increase in a futile attempt to bring down further the unemployment rate to a targeted rate, as happened in the 1970s. To its credit, the Fed protected against this possibility by setting its target at a relatively high unemployment rate of 6.5%, even though the rate prior to the onset of the recession in 2007 was well under 5%. The Fed also directly faced the risk of creating excessive inflation by setting its target as no more than 6.5% unemployment only as long as the inflation rate does not rise about 2.5%, a modest rate of inflation.
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发表于 2012-12-20 21:09:14
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