Last Saturday marked ten years I’ve had the honor of contributing to Econbrowser, at the generous invitation of Jim Hamilton (here are his thoughts on ten years of Econbrowser). What follows are some thoughts on what I’ve learned during that time.
Monthly Archives: September 2015
Record Year-to-Date Acres Burned
Acres burned already exceeds the comparable figure for 2006, the previous record year.
Figure 1: Acres burned to August 22 (blue bar), from August 22 to September 25 (red bar) and to year-end (green bar). Source: NIFC1, NFIC2, author’s calculations.
Using the same regression (log acres on log acres ytd) used in this post, my estimate of acres burned has risen from 9.62 million to 9.76 million.
This in turn raises the estimated total expenditures from $2.27 billion to $2.29 billion.
Figure 2: Acres burned (blue, left scale) and total Federal firefighting expenditure in dollars (pink, right scale) predicted 2015 (pink triangle). Source: NIFC1, NFIC2, and author’s calculations.
I’ve only tabulated direct Federal fiscal costs; here is an article on part of the human toll. Further note that these costs do not include state level costs. Cal Fire’s total budget for the current fiscal year is about $390 million.[1]
Economic importance of China
How important would an economic downturn in China be for the United States?
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“Walker…seeking to eliminate the state’s civil service exams…”
… replacing it with a résumé-based system for merit hiring.
I think I know what will be required on the résumés to be hired under the current administration.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article continues:
Republicans have already made changes in recent months, eliminating the Office of State Employment Relations as part of the state budget and replacing it with a new Division of Personnel Management in which Walker can appoint the person responsible for the state’s merit hiring rules.
I wonder if an analogous measure could be profitably applied for university applications. Who needs to do math, or be able to read in order to learn accounting or physics or writing?
Update, 9/29: My colleague Don Moynihan has published a more formal argument for what should and should not be included in civil service reform.
“Investing in Health Makes Economic Sense”
See also Larry Summers’ article in the FT.
Yuan Undervaluation?
As noted in The Hill, from a letter written by key House and Senate leaders to President Obama:
The continued misalignment of China’s currency is unsustainable and unacceptable.
The Return of Policy Uncertainty
From Hatzius et al., in Goldman Sachs Global Macro Research yesterday:
A federal shutdown due to a funding lapse looks no less likely than it did two weeks ago, and we believe the probability is nearly 50%. The Senate is expected to begin voting later this week on a funding extension, but the House looks unlikely to act until shortly before the September 30 deadline.
Guest Contribution: “The 30th Anniversary of the Plaza Accord”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, and former Member of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1997-99.
Forecasting interest rates
There was lots of action in financial markets last week, with much of the attention focused on the U.S. Federal Reserve. The interest rate on a 10-year U.S. Treasury bond edged up 10 basis points early in the week in anticipation that the Fed might finally raise its target for the short-term interest rate. But it shed all that and more after the Fed announced it was standing pat for now.
Price of CBOE option based on 10-year U.S. Treasury yield; to convert to the Treasury yield itself divide by 10. Source: Google Finance.
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Kansas: The Collapse Continues
As does the fiscal experiment.