Economics

The Wharton School’s Benjamin Lockwood warned that discouraging unhealthy behaviors with “sin taxes” may generate some revenue, but raising money “shouldn’t be the main rationale for the tax.”

Susan Wachter of the Wharton School and the Penn Institute for Urban Research joined other experts for a conversation about gentrification.

Ram Cnaan of the School of Social Policy & Practice and Melissa Wilde of the School of Arts and Sciences offered commentary on the presence of older churches in gentrifying neighborhoods.

The Wharton School’s Susan Wachter spoke about changes in the real estate market. “All the growth in housing new sales is in the South, where housing is affordable,” said Wachter.

The Wharton School’s Ann Harrison said, of the differences between the United States and China’s approaches to industrial policy, “we’re not supporting emerging industries. We’re bailing out failing industries.”

The Wharton School’s Philip Tetlock helped to create Good Judgment Inc., a forecaster that measures the likelihood of global events in order to predict changes in the economy.

Responding to assertions that workers should, ideally, be able to choose their labor based on skill and interest, Adam Cobb of the Wharton school said that “life doesn’t operate so cleanly…. A worker’s wealth and well-being is much more dependent upon her employer than the employer is on a given worker….”

Maisy Wong of the Wharton School said that home-buying costs have not decreased in response to competition, which “goes against a standard competitive force in economics.” Wong attributed the contradiction to agents “steering” clients toward higher-commission sales.

Nihat Bulent Gultekin of the Wharton School spoke about the role of politics in the Turkish economy. Changing interest rates isn’t enough to resolve the issue, according to Gultekin, who recommended implementing a wider set of measures to regulate the central bank.