The June coincident index flattens out; the leading index, released today, predicts a 1.1% growth over the next six months. Minnesota’s forecasted growth is over twice that rate.
Figure 1: Log coincident index for Minnesota (blue), and for Wisconsin (red), and six month forecasted levels implied by leading indices, all normalized to 2017M01=0. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and author’s calcuations.
Menzie, it would be interesting to have your take on the myriad points in this article: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/democrats-have-different-ideas-for-growing-wisconsin-s-economy/article_abbea6ab-c075-5878-82ab-4e3b1f1b73ed.html
In Colorado, investors, likely with the help of government, created the Denver Tech Center.
In the ‘90s, in particular, it grew rapidly and attracted high-skilled workers from California, Texas, and other states.
In the surrounding areas, Inverness Park was created with new tech businesses, hotels, etc.. Upper middle class housing tracts were built, with malls, schools, etc..
The area is now a large high-tech hub.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_Technological_Center
“In Colorado, investors, likely with the help of government, created the Denver Tech Center.”
In other words the government does some things right. Wait – I think I know why you never got a Ph.D. You wrote a thesis saying governments fail at things like these and the writing was so bad it embarrassed your professors!
I don’t know what Menzie thinks about this, but I think it’s going to be interesting paying attention to farm credit numbers over the next 2 years. How much in subsidies will trump’s government pay?? I wager trump’s government will pay a lot of subsidies once he starts smelling his own bacon burning at the midterms.
https://www.chicagofed.org/research/data/ag-conditions/index
Where profit margins are thin for farmers, how does a loan rate affect them that goes from 4.8 in 2015 to 5.5 in 2018, with crop inventories rising and prices on crops dropping?? And I haven’t heard anyone give a ceiling number on how much Republicans and the USDA will extend in government subsidies (otherwise known as welfare/income redistribution) to farmers.
Menzie
Are we to assume that the 1.1% growth is an annual measure?
Ed
Ed Hanson: No, it’s not annualized. It’s as reported by Philadelphia Fed.