Weekly(ish) Reading

Following my friend and colleague Shannon O’Neil’s lead, I’m going to start posting a quasi-weekly collection of links to interesting things that I’ve been reading. I encourage readers to add their own in the comments.

Today’s roundup will be my last post until late next week – I’m off to the west coast for the holiday weekend.

• UBS analysts pick apart last weekend’s New York Times shale gas story. The graphs of rig count versus production are particularly interesting and illuminating.
• A neat new paper in the American Economic Review uses a clever trick to infer the cost to automakers of complying with fuel economy standards. Bottom line: it’s awfully cheap. (For those without subscriber access, you can find a working paper version here.)
• I’ve been trying to get a better handle on how oil trade affects the U.S. current account balance. A key variable seems to be the special status of the U.S. dollar. To understand the source, and possible fate, of the dollar’s role, I’ve been reading Barry Eichengreen’s Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System.
• Mike Spence has a great essay on the relationship between globalization and unemployment in the new issue of Foreign Affairs. If you think you don’t need to read it because you’re focused on energy or climate policy, you’re wrong.