Updated 9/20 to reflect BLS state level employment data
The Kansas Department of Labor released some limited numbers regarding August labor market conditions today. These figures are consistent with an economic stall indicated in the Philadelphia Fed projections, discussed in this post.
A couple months ago, we were worrying about a yield curve inversion signalling recession. Now there are anxieties about surging long yields, as — apparently — inflation fears loom. It seems to me a little perspective is necessary.
Wisconsin DWD release here.
Here’s private nonfarm payroll employment relative to 2011M01.
Figure 1: Log private nonfarm payroll employment for US (black) and WI (red), seasonally adjusted, both normalized to 2011M01=0. Source: BLS, DWD, and author’s calculations.
The Philadelphia Fed’s indices indicate economic contraction in June and July. Leading indices indicate further contraction, by a percentage larger than any other state.
That’s the title of a new paper, coauthored with Yin-Wong Cheung, Antonio Garcia Pascual, and Yi Zhang.
The entire quote is here.
Commenting on the Kansas Palmer Drought Severity Index, Rick Stryker writes: “From a theoretical point of view it must be stationary.” He reasons that this is so, because it is bounded between -10 and +10. Question: Is this a relevant piece of information when examining finite samples? Let’s look at consumption as a share of GDP, which must be bounded between 0 and 1.
Figure 1: Nominal consumption to GDP ratio, SAAR (blue). Source: BEA, author’s calculations.
Quick links to a few items I found interesting.
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How to — and not do — time series analysis
That’s the title of the volume of proceedings of the 2015 Asia Economic Policy Conference, edited Reuven Glick and Mark M. Spiegel.