Congratulations to James Gualtieri, winner of the world famous Econbrowser NCAA tournament challenge.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
The effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy
Last week ECB President Mario Draghi revealed that the European Central Bank has been considering large-scale asset purchases as a tool to prevent European inflation from falling too far below the ECB’s target rate of 2%. What is the evidence for the effectiveness of these policies, and are there any risks?
Tight oil making a difference
Oil produced from tight formations in the United States inaccessible before the days of horizontal fracturing is now accounting for 4.3% of total global crude oil production, according to new estimates released by the EIA last week.
Graphs of key economic trends
Here are some graphs of economic data that illustrate some interesting trends.
2014 Econbrowser NCAA tournament challenge
It may be snowing back east, but March Madness has arrived just the same. Time to invite everyone to test your uncanny ability to predict the outcome of the U.S. college mens’ basketball tournament. Field seems particularly wide open this year. If you want to participate, go to the Econbrowser group at ESPN, do some minor registering to create a free ESPN account if you haven’t used that site before, and fill in your bracket with who you think might be the winners of each game. Just be sure you complete your predictions before Thursday, because the Econbrowser group does not allow changes in your bracket after the round of 65 begins on Thursday.
Addressing growing student debt
Mortgage and credit card debt today are lower than they were before the Great Recession. But the dollar value of outstanding student loans has surged, growing from 4% of GDP in 2007 to over 7% today.
Relaxing restrictions on U.S. exports of oil and natural gas
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have prompted some discussion of revisiting U.S. policy on exports of oil and natural gas.
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) last week called for faster Energy Department approval of facilities to export liquefied natural gas (LNG). Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) called for lifting the ban on U.S. crude oil exports. Here I offer an assessment of these proposals.
A bull’s-eye for Fed accountability
I was in New York on Friday attending the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum. One of the sessions was on how central banks could better communicate their plans for using unconventional monetary policy. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans presented some very interesting ideas.
Use of logarithms in economics
Why do economists always want to take the natural logarithm of everything? Here’s the answer,if you don’t mind looking at a few equations and graphs.
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Digital transaction security
Bits and bytes can be stolen just like the cash under your mattress.