Over at the Kauffman Foundation, Tim Kane has released his latest quarterly survey of economic bloggers. Here’s the usual word cloud reflecting the adjectives (up to five per respondent) that we econobloggers offered up to describe the U.S. economy: That’s much better than last quarter, when you needed a magnifying glass to find any optimistic [...]
Archive for the ‘Macroeconomics’ Category
The U.S. Economy is Uncertain, Fragile, and … Growing
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Economy, Haiku, Uncertainty on February 1, 2012 | 7 Comments »
Getting Better But a Long Way to Go
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged jobs, unemployment on January 7, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Friday’s jobs data confirmed that labor markets are getting better, but slowly. Payrolls expanded by 200,000, the unemployment rate fell again to 8.5%, weekly hours ticked up from 34.3 to 34.4, and hourly earnings rose by 0.2%. Of course, there is still a long, long way to go. Unemployment and underemployment both remain very high, but [...]
Is Our Luck Running Out on Oil Supplies?
Posted in Economy, Energy, Macroeconomics, tagged Energy, Macroeconomics, Oil on October 23, 2011 | 4 Comments »
In an excellent new paper, Jim Hamilton asks whether the “phenomenal increase in global crude oil production over the last century and a half” reflects technological progress or good fortune in finding new reserves. The two aren’t completely distinct, of course. Better technology helps find more resources. But the heart of the question remains: have we been [...]
Bank Marketing When Interest Rates Are Almost Zero
Posted in Business, Macroeconomics, tagged Banks, Capital One, Interest Rates, Marketing on October 13, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Judging by all the ads I saw on my commute this morning, Capital One has rolled out a new marketing campaign. At least half-a-dozen ads on my Metro car announced that Capital One offers interest rates that are five times higher than offered by their competitors: And what is that 5x interest rate? Just one percent. Such are [...]
Why Did Sargent and Sims Win a Nobel Prize?
Posted in Macroeconomics, tagged Macroeconomics, Nobel on October 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Because they developed methods to help distinguish between cause and effect in the macroeconomy. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science released a very readable account of their contributions here. Here’s the introduction: The economy is constantly affected by unanticipated events. The price of oil rises unexpectedly, the central bank sets an interest rate unforeseen by borrowers and [...]
Solow on Keynes and Uncertainty
Posted in History, Macroeconomics, tagged Keynes, Macroeconomics, Uncertainty on October 4, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Over at the New Republic, Bob Solow offers a thoughful review of Sylvia Nasar’s new book, Grand Pursuit: The Story of Genius. Along the way, Solow provides a characteristically clear explanation of what he views as John Maynard Keynes most important contribution: Back then [in the 1930s], serious thinking about the general state of the economy was [...]
What Should Economics Do in the Next Decade?
Posted in Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, tagged Economics on October 3, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Over at Economic Principals, David Warsh summarizes 55 short papers about the big questions that face economics. Among the suggestions: Most popular of the pitches, judging from the number of SSRN downloads, is, Why Don’t People and Institutions Do What They Know They Should?, by David Cutler, of Harvard University (a pungent exploration of the [...]
Helicopter Ben Needs to Pick Up His Game
Posted in Macroeconomics, tagged Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy on September 18, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is often characterized as a inflation-monger. There’s just one problem with that criticism. As David Leonhardt demonstrates in the New York Times, when it comes to inflation, Bernanke is a piker compared to most of his predecessors:Inflation has averaged just 2.3% under his leadership (as officially measured), less than under [...]
Unemployment, Small Business, Quantitative Easing, and More
Posted in Economy, International, Macroeconomics, tagged Federal Reserve, Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy, Small Business, Sweden, unemployment on September 15, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The Fed’s quantitative easing programs did indeed lower interest rates, but more so for Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities than for other kinds of debt. Small businesses are overrated as job creators. Extended unemployment insurance does increase unemployment rates, but not that much. Those are just a few of the findings from papers presented today at [...]
A Synchronized Slowdown in Developed Economies
Posted in Economy, International, Macroeconomics, tagged GDP, International, Macroeconomics on August 17, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Which of the following nations recorded the strongest economic growth in the second quarter? France, Germany, Italy, Japan, or the United States? This nice chart from today’s Wall Street Journal provides the answer (click for larger version): The U.S. expanded at a tepid 1.3% annual pace in Q2, but that was still better than many other [...]
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