TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• Jobs and commercial real estate—a reason to worry about employment. (macroblog)
• On Charles Karelis' [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• Jobs and commercial real estate—a reason to worry about employment. (macroblog)
• On Charles Karelis' [...]
BIG THINK is putting together a special report on the financial and economic crisis in which they interview lots of smart folks and [...]
SCOTT SUMNER is a defender of the Chinese government's management of the renminbi against the dollar. He restates his case here:
A managed [...]
SPEAKING of unemployment, here's my News analysis on the morning's payroll figures. The data were positive, but:
None of [...]
I REALISE readers may be growing tired of my focus on the Fed chief and his refusal to do his job, but his conduct [...]
THE Federal Reserve by law is supposed to strive for stable prices and full employment. It has had great success on the [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• On the subject of deficit cutting, here are Jeff Frankel's ten proposals for closing the gap. [...]
FELIX SALMON has an intriguing post up today on the American tax base:
Remember too that when you have a progressive tax system, [...]
COPENHAGEN'S thunder has been stolen by the lingering effects of the global recession. The worst since the 1930s, [...]
COMES from the New Republic's Jesse Zwick:
When did Canada start acting like Saudi Arabia when it comes to climate change? As George Monbiot [...]
I JOKED about Goldman's latest economic forecast yesterday, but it's worth paying some attention to their outlook for the American economy, through 2011:
The [...]
JOBLESS claims fell nowhere near as much last week as they had the previous one. But economists had expected [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• Dubai illustrates the return of a financial storm that can weather shocks—some of them, at least. [...]
GOLDMAN SACHS is feeling pretty bullish about global growth in 2010 and 2011:
The global economy will expand 4.4 percent in 2010 and 4.5 [...]
THE Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest figures on metropolitan unemployment rates today, and it provides another [...]
AHEAD of the jobs summit, the White House has laid out some principles for potential policy solutions, in the form [...]
FOR depressed areas economic growth should be a godsend. It provides jobs, and income, to people who need it most. But often [...]
EDWARD HARRISON directs us to an interesting Gallup poll result on American opinions about job creation. Have a look.
[...]
VIA Tyler Cowen, here's an interesting bit of economic history research:
Many theories, most famously Max Weber's essay on the 'Protestant ethic,' [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• The Bank of Japan, still fighting deflation. (The Economist)
• Maverecon is dead. Long live [...]
HERE is Real Time Economics on the latest inflation scare-mongering out of a Fed leader:
Federal Reserve Bank of [...]
LOOKING once more at the CBO analysis of stimulus spending through the third quarter, it's worth pointing out that the two spending categories with the [...]
MARKETS cheered this morning as the news broke that Dubai World will only need a workout on $26 billion or so—far [...]
FOLLOWING up on last week's discussion of price discrimination in retail, here is the abstract from new research by Jean Imbs, [...]
ACCORDING to the Congressional Budget Office, America's economic performance as of the third quarter was materially better than it otherwise would [...]
I HAVE previously mentioned recent research by Barry Eichengreen and Doug Irwin, who found that protectionist policies during the Great Depression [...]
BLOOMBERG has a brilliant story on Peter Orszag up this morning, which comes equipped with perhaps the best strange [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
Euro-area inflation remains remarkably subdued despite rising energy costs, but, like the Fed, the European Central Bank [...]
THE Congressional Budget Office has analysed (PDF) the likely change in premiums for participants in the non-group insurance markets, [...]
THE ECONOMIST has a News analysis piece up providing a deeper look at the ramifications of the "default" of Dubai [...]
LATELY, Tyler Cowen has been pushing an Austrian view of economic activity in China, namely, that government policies are generating far [...]
BARNSTORMING Ben Bernanke took his lobbying effort on behalf of the Federal Reserve to the pages of the Washington [...]
SO, THE big news during this blogger's Thanksgiving absence came out of Dubai, where the sovereign-owned Dubai essentially declared that it was unable [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• Martin Wolf joins the chorus of those noting that budgets need to be repaired, but not [...]
JAMES HAMILTON has written a good post on the issue of the American government deficit:
[T]he question before us is, what will [...]
THE Friday after Thanksgiving in America is famously a time of major sales and packed stores, as consumers rush out to begin [...]
YOU can be sure that there were occasional bouts of mania and panic:
Dr Bryan Wells, a researcher based at India’s Institute of [...]
HERE is something for which to be thankful—weekly jobless claims posted a substantial decline last week, falling to 466,000. That's [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• When does outsourcing of public services pay off? (Vox)
• "The modern economic literature on [...]
THE minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting are now available to the public. Here's part of their discussion on [...]
THE Wall Street Journal has a piece up, complete with interactive graphic, detailing new information on mortgage borrowing from First American [...]
TODAY'S Washington Post highlights what it declares to be a supreme irony. Nuclear power, once among environmentalists' chief enemies, [...]
I'M NOT sure this is the kind of thing that will convince people that the financial sector is providing a valuable public [...]
THE latest Case-Shiller home price figures (for the month of September) have come out, and the results are quite interesting. [...]
THE easy answer is yes, America should worry about its deficit. The hard question is how much should it worry about it [...]
IN NEWS that was not entirely unexpected, the Commerce Department has revised down America's third quarter growth figure, from 3.5% to [...]
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:
• Elections in developing countries seem to improve economic policy, so long as they're regular and competitive. [...]
THE health care reform debate has produced plenty of interesting commentary on the economics of health care, but perhaps more interesting [...]
Choose Blog:
Free exchange
Have you gotten your teacup pig, yet?
The Economist | WASHINGTON
WITH the third December since the onset of the Great Recession looming, it's once more time to look in on [...]
THE data release on existing home sales highlighted in the last post also noted that the median sales price in October was just [...]
EXISTING home sales posted quite a performance in October, rising some 10% from September, more than forecast. Sales came in [...]
GUESTING at Modeled Behavior, Adam Ozimek highlights some interesting new research (PDF) on the effect of political assassinations:
The main result [...]
HAVE a look at the picture below, put together by Jean-Marie Grether and Nicole Mathys. What we're looking at here are points [...]
What's really behind the deficit hawkishness?
MY WORKING theory of the Obama administration's recent deficit tough talk has been that the powers that be believe any new, deficit-funded stimulative measure would be impossible to get through Congress without some nod toward reining in the growing debt. Paul Krugman seems [...]
MY WORKING theory of the Obama administration's recent deficit tough talk has been that the powers that be believe any new, deficit-funded stimulative measure would be impossible to get through Congress without some [...]
Please stop patting Ben Bernanke on the back
ALAN BLINDER opens a new Washington Post column with what I believe is the conventional wisdom:The Federal Reserve's performance in this long-running financial and economic crisis deserves separate grades. For the early crisis period, from the summer of 2007 until a [...]
ALAN BLINDER opens a new Washington Post column with what I believe is the conventional wisdom:
The Federal Reserve's performance in this long-running financial and economic crisis deserves separate grades. For the early crisis [...]
Would you take investment advice from this man?
WHEN last we checked in on Bill Gross, he was writing about, um, death, before telling us all that assets have way over-performed over the past 50 years. In his latest missive, by contrast, Mr Gross is merely rewriting history:My point [...]
WHEN last we checked in on Bill Gross, he was writing about, um, death, before telling us all that assets have way over-performed over the past 50 years. In his latest missive, [...]
China's trade surplus is about more than exchange rates
IN JUST about any analysis of the persistent trade imbalance between China and America, China's currency policy is sure to feature as the principle villain. By pegging its currency to the dollar, China prevents dollar depreciation from playing its natural [...]
IN JUST about any analysis of the persistent trade imbalance between China and America, China's currency policy is sure to feature as the principle villain. By pegging its currency to the dollar, China [...]
An unlikely explanation for high auto prices
EARLIER this week, I pointed to a surprising increase in vehicle prices in the Consumer Price Index and noted that the rise seemed to be due to Cash for Clunkers, which depleted vehicle inventories. Prices were up because there were fewer cars [...]
The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:• Metropolitan budgets are on the brink of catastrophe. (New Republic) • Income and poverty in American counties, nicely mapped. (Economix)• Basic background deficit math. (Brad DeLong) • Google invents a city, puts it on Google maps. [...]
It will have to be done eventually; here's where to start
AMERICA has gotten itself into a funny place. Despite the large increase in its debt load associated with the Bush tax cuts, two significant wars, a deep recession, and large fiscal stimulus, the country has managed to avoid [...]
Of young health reform supporters and old empires
I PRESENT two outstanding graphical presentations of data, for your enjoyment. First, from the New York Times, a look at support for health care reform across two critical variables:And second, via Paul Kedrosky, a videographic on the (recent) history of empire:Bonus [...]
A warming globe is a hungrier one
THE amusing-yet-slightly-disturbing news of the day is that America is suffering a nationwide shortage of Eggo frozen waffles—a critical part of the diets of lazy breakfasters everywhere. The reason for the shortage? Production problems at key Kellogg facilities in Atlanta, Georgia, which [...]
Far from where we want to be
THE good news is, the OECD's latest economic forecast revises up sharply projected economic growth for member nations. The bad news is, that still leaves OECD economies in pretty dismal shape. The organisation is now projecting that OECD members will grow by [...]
Free exchange is trying to help find a better macro policy
I THINK Brad DeLong misread this post of mine from yesterday as a shot at him. It wasn't. I agree with him that the constraints which seem to be draping themselves across American policy options are worrisome. I [...]
A half million seeking unemployment benefits each week
IT SEEMS a little silly to report on weekly jobless claims figures for a week in which there was no change in the number, but I've been following this statistic for so long now that I feel obliged to update you. [...]
The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:• Say's Law in China—is it really so crazy to build a big empty city? (Scott Sumner) • Economists on some key principles for health care legislation (but why'd they send the letter to the president?). (Economix) [...]
People forgetting how bad things were last fall
BRAD DELONG got himself a lot of links yesterday by writing that efforts to save the banking industry last fall, by eroding public trust in government, increased the odds of a replay of the Great Depression from virtually nothing to 5%. [...]
Pundits desperately want some ineffectual tough talk
TODAY, it's Martin Wolf's turn to write this column:This, then, was an opportunity for Mr Obama to tell some brutal truths. I hope he did, after careful briefing from his staff, on the following lines...The policy China apparently recommends to us would [...]
More cash now needed to buy clunkers
THIS morning we learn that consumer prices in America ticked upward by 0.3%, month-over-month, in October, with core prices rising 0.2%. That's a bit more than expected, and it stands in contrast to the producer price data released yesterday, which showed continued [...]
Americans have started to save again, hope it will last
WHAT will the global economy look like without the consumption-mad American? In response to the recession Americans are saving more and spending less. In 2009 the American personal saving rate spiked to about 6%. That's small compared to historical [...]
How to say "keep out" in futurese
MEGAN MCARDLE directs us to an interesting Slate piece on the trouble with trying to deter future excavation of dangerous nuclear waste facilities:Even if future trespassers could understand what keep and out mean when placed side by side, there's no reason to [...]
A salute to papers with boring conclusions
CRITICS of academic journals often focus on the issue of publication bias; everyone is anxious to publish a paper with a dramatic finding or unexpected result while few people care much about drawing attention to researchers who went looking for titillating findings [...]
The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:• Treat sudden financial arrest with a financial defibrillator, says Ricardo Caballero. Includes a nice discussion of incentive effects. (Vox)• Steven Pinker reviews Malcolm Gladwell. Mr Gladwell responds. (New York Times, Gladwell.com)• The economics of pinball. (Cheap [...]
The rich world should show emerging markets how it's done
ED GLAESER is basically right when he says:[I]f China’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions increase by 14.4 tons and reach United States levels, then world carbon dioxide emissions will increase by about 19 billion tons or 67 percent. If [...]
Which country will have the best 2010?
THE ECONOMIST has cranked up its World in 2010 blog (which, shockingly, is not about the distant future but next year), and today there is an entry asking for nominations for "Best Country in the World, 2010". (Somalia has already won the [...]
Immigrants don't crowd out native workers
SO LONG as we're obsessing about labour markets, here's an interesting new research result from Giovanni Peri: Using the large variation in the inflow of immigrants across US states we analyze the impact of immigration on state employment, average hours worked, physical capital' [...]
The central bank is failing at its primary task
BEN BERNANKE gave a talk yesterday to the Economic Club of New York. He discussed the American labour market:Since December 2007, the U.S. economy has lost, on net, about 8 million private-sector jobs, and the unemployment rate has risen from [...]
Officials blind to the scope of the unemployment problem
IN THE last week, the internet has filled with examinations of the problem of a jobless recovery and what can be done to address it. In particular, there has been an ongoing debate over how effective monetary policy has been [...]
The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:• This makes sense, but it's interesting to imagine what the economic impact might be of undoing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts during the 2011 to 2013 time frame. (Economist Mom, via Brad DeLong) • It [...]
It's about deals to be struck, not sabres rattled
PAUL KRUGMAN'S column today makes a point I brought up not long ago—that there's a real danger to the global trade system of having high American unemployment figures juxtaposed against headlines on China's trade surplus for months on end. That [...]
Bullishness on commodities, most likely
JAMES HAMILTON notes that commodity prices have been moving in lockstep for most of this year, and they've been rising—the average commodity rose in price by about 37% from the beginning of the year. What to make of this?I wouldn't really think that this [...]
Selling items for more and less than they're worth, at the same time
TYLER COWEN links to a New York Times column by Richard Staler, on the diabolical auction site Swoopo. The idea behind Swoopo is pretty straightforward: items for auction are posted on the site, and every time' [...]
Don't look now, but big trade deficits are back
IMBALANCES in global trade and capital flows seemed to play a key role in generating the financial and economic crisis that the world has faced over the past few years. This has led to considerable handwringing over what should be' [...]
Growth is returning, mostly
FOR the most part, today's economic data releases are pretty encouraging. American retail sales were up in October, though the growth from September looks less impressive when gains from automobile sales are removed (ex-autos, retail sales were up 0.2%). The chart below, from Calculated Risk, [...]
The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:Commercial real estate problems might cause banks to limit loans to small businesses, slowing job creation. (macroblog)"[M]ost food price spikes are driven by major policy shifts, such as tariffs and subsidies, which result in harmful tit-for tat [...]
It looks like money for nothing
EARLIER this week, CBO head Doug Elmendorf made a statement that got everyone in the blogosphere nodding along:The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and [...]
Europe limps into expansion
THE big economic news today is that the euro zone managed economic expansion in the third quarter, but barely. The Economist notes:It is not quite the recovery that was hoped for. Figures released on Friday November 13th showed that the euro-area economy crawled out of [...]
American firms can build efficient cars, but choose not to
SPEAKING of America's oil problem, here's a look at one reason the country is so petrol-hungry:New car fleet fuel economy, weight and engine power have changed drastically since 1980. These changes represent both movements along and shifts in the [...]
But for oil and China, pretty well
WITH American recovery comes renewed growth in the trade deficit:You can see in the chart above that America's trade balance collapsed, along with world trade generally and oil prices, through January of this year, at which point a slow recovery began. Since [...]
If only coastal metros grew like Houston
I RECENTLY commented on a new Brookings' analysis of the likely cost of a climate bill across metropolitan areas. As part of that post, I noted:The tricky part about that dynamic is this: the cleanest metropolitan areas in the country also tend [...]
Straight talk on the dollar is hard to find
AH, THE painful contortions American leaders find themselves attempting whenever the dollar's relative strength or weakness is at issue. Earlier this week, Tim Geithner could be heard saying:I believe deeply that it's very important to the United States, to the [...]
Australia drowning in a sea of surplus Sauvignon
AUSTRALIA has a lot of wine sitting around:Australia has an accumulated surplus of 100 million cases of wine that will double in the next two years if current trends continue, according to the report. The annual surplus is huge – equal [...]
The Berlin Wall's impact on trade patterns persists
TO FOLLOW up a bit on the discussion earlier this week on German economic integration, post reunification, here's a new research result from Volker Nitsch and Nikolaus Wolf:Why do borders still matter for economic activity? The reunification of Germany in 1990 [...]
The Chinese government stimulates weather, as well
HERE'S your bizarre news story of the day:Beijing’s airport canceled more than 60 flights and delayed more than 120 others today as the heaviest snowfall in the Chinese capital in at least 54 years blanketed the city for the third day this [...]
The labour market bleeding is slightly less profuse
BY THIS, I mean the fact that only half a million people filed for unemployment benefits last week. Still, the 502,000 initial jobless claims reported this morning were fewer than economist forecasts and the lowest total since the beginning of the [...]
