New claims for unemployment insurance this week came in at the lowest level in over 40 years. How much slack can there be left in the labor market?
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Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Firm-specific factors in rising income inequality
I spent the last two weeks in Boston at the NBER Summer Institute where I learned about a lot of interesting new economic research. Here I describe a new paper by Jae Song, David Price, Fatih Guvenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Till von Wachter on the role of firm-specific factors in rising income inequality.
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Possible scenarios for Greece
It’s very clear that two things have to happen from here. First, Greece needs relief from its mountain of debt, and second, the country needs to find a way to become more competitive economically.
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Anil Kashyap on the Greek crisis
University of Chicago Professor Anil Kashyap has a helpful summary of the Greek financial crisis.
Our distant neighbors
There’ve been some stunning pictures recently sent back from distant parts of our solar system which I wanted to share.
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Renegotiating Greece’s debt
Here are my thoughts on options for handling Greece’s debt.
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The bailouts of 2007-2009
The latest issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives had a very interesting symposium on the costs and benefits of the various bailouts implemented during the Great Recession.
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Ten years of Econbrowser
Last week marked the tenth anniversary of Econbrowser. That gives me an occasion to talk a little about why I started the blog and what we’ve accomplished with it.
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Current economic conditions: not as bad as it sounds
On Friday the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its second estimate of U.S. 2015:Q1 real GDP growth. The BEA now estimates that the economy contracted at a 0.7% annual rate rather than grew 0.2% as originally estimated. The number is discouraging, though I see some silver linings.
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Gasoline prices and consumer sentiment
U.S. retail gasoline prices last week averaged over $2.80 a gallon, thirty cents higher than a month ago. The preliminary University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment for May was 88.6, down 7 points from the month before. Are these two developments related?
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