The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that U.S. real GDP fell at a 4.8% annual rate in the first quarter of 2020. That’s a rate of decline that we only see historically during the worst quarter of a recession.
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Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Negative oil prices
First negative interest rates, and now negative oil prices. Is the world coming to an end?
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Coping with the COVID-19 economic shock
Every recession is different. The recession of 2020 will not be an exception to that rule.
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Steady growth continues
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced yesterday that U.S. real GDP grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2019. That’s slightly below the 2.3% average rate since the recovery from the Great Recession began in 2009:Q3.
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The return of the Fed’s balance-sheet policies
The Federal Reserve has increased the size of its balance sheet by a third of a trillion dollars over the last 15 weeks, returning to tools that a short while ago we thought it had abandoned. But the Fed’s current goal in these operations is quite different from what we had seen earlier.
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Growing a little more slowly
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that U.S. real GDP grew at a 1.9% annual rate in the third quarter of 2019. That’s a little below the 2.3% average rate since the recovery from the Great Recession began in 2009:Q3.
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John Williams on monetary policy and the current economic outlook
I moderated a discussion this morning with John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in which John shared his perspectives on monetary policy and the current economic outlook. You can watch on Youtube (conversation begins at 44 minutes in).
Economy still growing, but…
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that U.S. real GDP grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the second quarter of 2019. That’s pretty near the 2.2% average rate since the recovery from the Great Recession began in 2009:Q3.
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Comparing shipping costs and industrial production as measures of world economic activity
That’s the title of my latest contribution at Vox CEPR Policy Portal.
Libra: economics of Facebook’s cryptocurrency
Facebook last week announced plans for Libra, a new global cryptocurrency. The name seems to be a marriage of the words “livre”, the French currency throughout the Middle Ages based on a pound of silver, and “liber,” which is Latin for “free.” Facebook claims that Libra will give the freedom to easily transmit funds across borders to the 1.7 billion adults in the world without access to traditional banks.
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