Weekly Economic Snapshot 5/15 - 5/19

Economic Facts for this Week

Joint Economic Committee Democrats will release a report later this week on the costs of corruption for the U.S. economy. Beyond enriching the corrupt, evidence from around the world shows that corruption poses real and significant economy-wide costs:

• Economic research on corruption in Italy shows that having a politician in the family increases an individual’s private income by at least 3.5 percent annually.
• Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s private television network Mediaset increased its profits by one billion euros during his tenure thanks to advertising revenue from companies eager to gain favor.
• In Russia, a political connection to a winning politician increases a firm’s revenue by about 60 percent and profit margins by 15 percent throughout the politician’s time in office.

Chart of the Week

While some Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers have higher median weekly earnings than non-Hispanic white workers, lumping all AAPI workers together in one group ignores the wide range of economic outcomes that different AAPI communities experience. Accounting for differences in individual workers’ observable characteristics such as education further shows that AAPI workers actually earn less than similar non-Hispanic white workers, although outcomes do vary by subgroup.

ICYMI

• Improved access to treatment for substance use disorders can reduce fatal traffic accident rates by 4.1 to 5.4 percent.
• Higher exposure to lead increases the likelihood that a child will be suspended from school and that a boy will be put in detention.
• Minimum wage violations may be costing U.S. workers more than $15 billion each year in wage theft.
• Sanctions on for-profit colleges do not prevent students from going to school; research shows that students instead enroll in local community colleges.
• New research from the Bank for International Settlements confirms that Dodd-Frank rules surrounding annual supervision and assessment are working to reduce speculative lending by banks and to mitigate the future risks of financial crises in the United States.

Coming This Week

• Friday 10:00am: State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/laus.pdf