EconAir

    Demographic Issues   This is a summary of the essays in this blog on demographic projections.    It is not only the arc of population increases and then decreases that is important. It is what happens under the arc. Birth rates fall below replacement, the number of births go down, the size of the prime ages labor force decreases while the number of retired people go up. Eventually, the number of older citizens start to go down and the total population decreases faster and in larger numbers. This scenario happens in an increasing number of countries and then for the global population.   The long-run demographic projections and discussion in this blog are based on the Lancet projections of birth rates and population using 2017-2020 data. Forecasts for global trends and for some countries have changed since the Lancet projections. The key projection is birth rates for each country, for geographical regions, and for the entire world.   But how good are...

  Immigrants and their children account for a disproportionate number of entrepreneurs and CEOs of technology companies. Half of the graduate students in engineering, math and science in US universities are foreigners. In the past, a high percent stayed in the United States after graduation. Immigrants are founders or current CEOs of most of America’s leading tech companies. (Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, AMD, Intel)   The economic impact and importance of companies founded by immigrants or their children. More than 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 2025 (231 out of 500) were founded by immigrants or their children, including: 109 companies founded by immigrants. 122 companies founded by children of immigrants. Among the 14 companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 list for the first time this year, 10 were founded by immigrants or their children. In fiscal year 2024, these 231 Fortune 500 companies generated $8.6 trillion in revenue—an amount that, if compared with ...

SUMMARY AND UPDATE (2/26)   President Trump's tariff offensive has been a failure in its main objectives of narrowing the U.S. trade deficit or reducing China's trade surplus. China's trade surplus was larger in 2025 than in 2024. Reduced exports to the United States was more than made up by a large increase of exports to the rest of the world, including rerouting exports to the U.S. through Asian countries and Mexico.  America's trade deficit in goods in 2025 was higher than in 2024. The overall trade deficit stayed the same as the higher goods deficit was offset by a larger trade surplus in services. Growth in total exports was about the same as growth in total imports. Total imports were $4.7 trillion; total exports were $3.4 trillion. The trade deficit was $901 billion, almost exactly the same as in 2025. As of January 19, 2026, the average tariff rate was 16.9%. The increased cost of American imports is mostly paid by American consumers. The government collected so...