How concerned should we be?
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
New home sales continue to fall
No question about it, the housing downturn is here now, and it’s big.
Dating business cycle turning points
Thanks much to Menzie for holding down the fort while I was away last week. Now that I’m back, I’d like to weigh in on the issue of when did the recession of 2001 begin, a topic on which Menzie, Greg Mankiw, Steve Verdon, Michael Mandel, and Brad DeLong all commented last week.
Good and not-so-good reasons to disagree with Bernanke
Some of the reasons people have given for why the Fed should keep raising interest rates make sense to me, and some don’t.
How do oil price shocks affect the economy?
That’s the topic of the latest Wall Street Journal Econoblog, in which I was pleased to participate along with Stephen Brown, who is Director of Energy Economics and Microeconomic Policy Analysis at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Econbrowser (and hopefully Bernanke) gets it right
As we predicted here last Friday the Federal Reserve announced today its decision to hold the fed funds rate constant at 5.25%.
Bad news from Alaska
The response of oil prices to the news from Alaska has been more modest than I was expecting, with the September NYMEX crude contract currently up about $2 to $77/barrel.
A pause it shall be
The last month has been something of a cliffhanger for Fed watchers. But today the market seemed to make up its mind.
Autos again taking a hit
The Big 3 U.S. automakers continue to get a little less big.
About that pause
A few weeks ago I noted that the fed funds futures contracts seemed to reflect an expectation that we’d see one more rate hike this fall, and that would be it. But a lot can change in two weeks. Now the message looks more like, “that’s it!”