Californians who bought gasoline on Friday experienced an unpleasant shock.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Natural gas for transportation
As President Obama and Governor Romney prepare for the first presidential debate this evening, I thought I would offer my vision of where our nation’s leaders should try to take the country.
China’s economic slowdown
As Niels Bohr (and others) observed, prediction is difficult, especially about the future. But if the challenge is predicting the number of 20-year-olds 5 years from now, you can get a pretty darn good start if you know the number of 15-year-olds right now.
Fat fingers and the price of oil
Can the wild swings in the price of oil over the last few weeks have anything to do with supply and demand?
Thresholds in the economic effects of oil prices
As U.S. retail gasoline prices once again near $4.00 a gallon, does this pose a threat to the economy and President Obama’s prospects for re-election? My answer is no.
Effects of QE3
On Thursday the Federal Reserve announced a series of measures that will come to be referred to as a third round of “quantitative easing,” or QE3. Here I review what effects this is intended to have and some of the developments so far.
Geopolitical unrest and key oil producers
Some people observed 9/11 by lighting candles, others by killing more Americans.
Influencing the internets
It seems UFollow’s algorithms decided I’m among the 100 most influential columnists and bloggers. Other econbloggers on their list included Paul Krugman, Felix Salmon, Ezra Klein, Yves Smith, and Bill McBride.
Woodford and QE3
Columbia University Professor Michael Woodford’s paper at the Fed’s Jackson Hole conference last week made the case that more large-scale asset purchases by the Fed would by themselves do nothing, and suggested that instead what really matters is the Fed’s communication of its future intentions. There’s a fair bit in Woodford’s analysis that I agree with. But unlike Woodford, I think that asset purchases can be an important part of what the Fed could do in the here and now. Here I explain why.
The gold standard and economic growth
Tyler Cowen acknowledges that the gold standard as implemented in 1929-1932 was a disaster, and that a gold standard would also work very poorly in the presence of the big changes in the real value of gold over the last decade. But in the interests of promoting a balanced discussion, he asks:
Dare anyone critical of the gold standard bring themselves to utter these (roughly true) words?: “For the Western world, the gold standard era, defined say as 1815-1913, was arguably the greatest period of human advance ever, at least in matters of economics, culture, and technology.”
Here are my thoughts on Tyler’s question.