The proceedings start tomorrow (Thursday).
Monthly Archives: November 2014
(Fiscally) Bleeding Kansas
The deterioration in Kansas state finances not only continues unabated — it is seemingly accelerating.
Known Unknowns in International Finance
Implications for the dollar’s trajectory
How to get an academic job in economics
It’s that time of year again when our graduate students present seminars based on their dissertations in preparation for flying around the country trying to get an academic job. So I thought as a public service I’d call attention to this instructional video from the faculty at the University of Wisconsin on what new Ph.D.’s can expect when they give their first job talk.
Lunatic Fringe Alert: Government Statistics Edition
Longtime reader Ricardo (aka Dick/DickF/RicardoZ) writes:
…Our government is doing a serious disservice by falsifying the employment condition in our country. Policy changes that could actually help are being delayed with false information.
October Employment Release: Market Improvement, but Not Yet Tight
The October employment release was much in line with expectations. I will focus my observations on a few observations:
(1) Alternative indicators indicate better improvement than headline (estimated) nonfarm payroll employment; (2) estimated nonfarm payroll employment has been revised upward over the past couple months; (3) estimated employment compensation growth remains muted, especially after taking into account catch-up and estimated productivity gains.
Rouble Floats, and Sinks
From Reuters yesterday:
The rouble tumbled on Wednesday after Russia’s central bank effectively abandoned the trading corridor for the currency, halting the multi-billion dollar daily interventions that had propped it up through sanctions and plunging oil revenues.
Known Unknowns in Macro
Reader Tom argues that economic discourse should not include discussion of variables that are unobservable, to wit (or at least indicate that it’s an estimate):
You announce somebody’s estimations of a theoretical, unobservable phenomenon as “the output gap” or “the actual output gap” as if you and they actually know them to be the output gap.
If we used this criterion, what variables would be ruled out from polite conversation? A lot…let’s just take the real interest rate.
Arkansas ahead of Wisconsin
On progress in implementing the minimum wage.
Evaluation of quantitative easing
Last week the U.S. Federal Reserve closed a chapter on the experiment with quantitative easing, just as the Bank of Japan opened a new one. Seems like a good time to comment on some of what we’ve learned so far.