As discussed in the main article, the best reference for understanding the economics of the publishing industry is Harold L. Vogel's acclaimed Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis . (The 7th edition is © 2007).
2. Economy May Face Prolonged Pain, History Suggests
This useful article from the Wall Street Journal considers the historic pattern of recovery from recessions.
3. Too Soon to Relax
Given my affection for The Economist as an excellent gauge of where things are, and where they're headed (they predicted the current economic problems years ago), I offer also this article from May 2008 (subscription required).
4. An Oracle of Oil Predicts $200-a-Barrel Crude
In a May, 2008 New York Times article (registration required), Arjun N. Murti, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, "foresees a ‘super spike' ̶ a price surge that will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel...the grim calculus of Mr. Murti's prediction, issued in March and reconfirmed two weeks ago, is enough to give anyone pause: in an America of $200 oil, gasoline could cost more than $6 a gallon." An interesting critique of the NYT article appeared soon after.
Everything has changed since this analysis. The price of oil has plummeted. It's beginning to rise again, but not drastically. Some say that it will; others point to decline worldwide demand. In July 2010 it's trading around $75/barrel. In a recent Wall Street Journal survey, the average price predicted by 55 economists for end of 2011 is just $81.
5. National Trend of Home Price Declines Continued into the First Quarter of 2009 According to S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
Many (most?) commentators on the changes in home prices consider the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices to be the most accurate indicator. The latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are very grim, although other data conflicts on a nearly daily basis.
In 2005 I purchased the recently-published 2nd edition of Robert Shiller's "Irrational Exuberance ." The main reason Shiller wrote the second edition, was to look at the real estate bubble, which was acknowledged by very few commentators at the time. As the dust jackets states: "Shiller amasses impressive evidence to support his argument that the recent housing market boom bears many similarities to the stock market bubble of the late 1990s, and may eventually be followed by declining home prices for years to come." He saw it coming.
6. The US Economy - Is It FUBAR ?
A very good short video from Mark Anderson (who I reference in my Friends/Links section ) providing a compelling argument that the economic data we're being fed by the U.S. government (and supported by the media) comes nowhere close to telling us the whole truth about the current financial predicament. A complementary article appears in the June 2008 issue of Harper's, called Our Phony Economy (subscription may be required).
7. The Bias of Economist and the Bias of the Public
One of my blog entries in July 2010 examines a confusingly misleading article in The Wall Street Journal comparing the opinions of its panel of economists with a public poll conducted a month before. It augments the content of this piece. In the entry I state that "there is ample documentation of the bias of economists." I needed to offer a single link to demonstrate the ampleness of the evidence, and found instead many different articles, so I thought better to link here.
The articles I've found include:
(i) Economic bias and ideology: evidence from the general social survey
"This paper examines the connection between political ideology and four distinct categories of economic bias: anti-market bias, make-work bias, anti-foreign bias, and pessimistic bias..." Of course this paper has a bias, but it provides a range of additional references as well.
(ii) Logic, Bias and Economics
(Registration required.) This is a blog entry referencing a different widely-referenced blog entry, specifically examining the shortcomings associated with the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). The author of the second blog entry, John Mauldin, writes mainly about a presentation from "financial heretic " James Montier, who has a separate blog called "Behavioural Investing."
(iii) Bryan Caplan, a professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, and author of "The Myth of the Rational Voter" has an eclectic out of date blog with many links to his (earlier) excellent articles and papers. He also blogs at EconLog (with Arnold Kling and David Henderson) on "issues and insights in economics."
(iv) Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy
"This Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard University survey examines public understanding, perceptions and attitudes about the economy with those of economists. Articles as part of this series by The Washington Post ran from October 12, 1996 through October 16, 1996 and are included with the questionnaire."
The disparities are remarkable: fascinating and important. Bryan Caplan frequently uses the survey as source material.