Technological breakthroughs in methods for drilling for natural gas have opened up the possibility of vast new supplies. However, environmental concerns may turn out to be significant.
Monthly Archives: May 2011
What Would Really Bring about a Dollar Dive?
One of the things about reading the op-eds and various articles in the blogosphere is the tendency to hype the possibility of the collapse in this, or the collapse in that. The most recent “bubble” in this type of writing involved hyper-inflation, commodities (silver, anyone?) and the dollar. Now I read things like QEIII would bring about a collapse in the dollar [1] (as if anybody really thought QEIII was politically likely, even if it were advisable on economic grounds); or easy monetary policy would be the culprit. Here’s a choice quote from Jim Rogers:
Oil prices and trading mechanics
A report from Reuters (hat tip: Felix Salmon) attributes the wild commodity price moves last week to algorithmic stop-loss trading.
China’s Currency and Trade Balance: Two Pictures
The US-China Strategic and Economic Dialog is underway. [0] The topics span many issues. One of the perennials is the yuan’s real value and the Chinese trade balance. Here are two figures.
Learning about Long Term Unemployment (II)
Politics and Policy
Last Monday, I discussed some of the findings from the conference on causes and consequences of, and policy responses to, long term unemployment, which brought to UW Madison Prakash Loungani, an Advisor in IMF’s Research Department, Kenneth Scheve, Professor of Political Science at Yale, Phillip Swagel, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and a former Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Economic Policy, Rob Valletta, Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Kenneth Troske, Professor of Economics from the University of Kentucky. In today’s post, I will discuss the presentations and papers by Ken Scheve and Phillip Swagel and Ken Troske.
Lower oil prices
Like a roller coaster ride, 2011 saw oil prices climb gradually, only to fall dramatically this last week. Here I offer my thoughts on some of the key contributing factors.
Guest Contribution: The Taylor Rule and QE2
By David Papell
Today, we’re fortunate to have <a
href=”http://www.uh.edu/~dpapell/”>David Papell, Professor of Economics at
the University of Houston, as a Guest
Contributor.
More on oil markets
Will high oil prices bring a new recession?
Ten of the 11 recessions in the United States since World War II have been preceded by an increase in oil prices. Does the recent surge in oil prices mean we should be looking for recession number 12?
Learning about Long Term Unemployment (I)
On Thursday, we brought together an impressive array of scholars to discuss the causes and consequences of, and policy responses to, long term unemployment, including Prakash Loungani, Advisor in the IMF’s Research Department, Kenneth Scheve, Professor of Political Science at Yale, Phillip Swagel, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and a former Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Economic Policy, Rob Valletta, Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Dan Aaronson, Director of Microeconomic Research at the Chicago Fed, and Kenneth Troske, Professor of Economics from the University of Kentucky. And that was in addition to the researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (more on them below). For me, this was a tremendous learning experience. But like all good conferences, by the end I understood that I knew less than I thought I knew about long term unemployment. In today’s post, I will discuss the presentations and papers by Prakash Loungani and Rob Valletta; in the next post, I’ll cover the findings of Ken Scheve and Phillip Swagel and Ken Troske.