As Europe and the IMF announce close to a trillion dollar rescue package, Megan McArdle asks, what’s the benefit to the countries providing the funding? Here are my thoughts.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Staying sane in a crazy market
For a few exciting minutes on Thursday, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average was down a thousand points, with some major stocks momentarily falling to a penny a share. The basic story appears to be as follows. Initial strong selling in some stocks such as Procter & Gamble led the New York Stock Exchange to halt trading temporarily in a few stocks until specialists could sort out what was going on. But trading in those stocks continued on other exchanges, where as a result of their thinner books, orders to sell at any price went far down the list of existing buy bids. These lower prices triggered further automatic selling that sent some stocks all the way through the list of outstanding bids until encountering basement bids at one cent a share.
One popular meme is to attribute these fireworks to the existence of multiple trading venues that didn’t all get shut down simultaneously (e.g.,
WSJ or NYT). But I think we should also be taking a closer look at the folks who were sending the sell orders rather than just blaming the exchanges for carrying out the instructions they received.
How much damage does the market think the oil spill has done?
Econbrowser is pleased to host this guest contribution from UCSD Ph.D. candidate Ben Fissel, who shares a quick estimate of the economic damage from the Gulf oil spill.
The sluggish recovery
This week we received more evidence confirming that the U.S. economy has returned to positive, but still disappointing, growth.
Where would we be without offshore oil?
As oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, I thought it might be helpful to review how we got where we are today.
The recession is over
That’s the big take-away from today’s report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that the seasonally adjusted real value of the nation’s production of goods and services grew at a 3.2% annual rate during the first quarter of 2010. But the details behind today’s report suggest that the recovery so far remains pretty weak by historical standards.
Why Adam ate the apple
In my last post, I discussed how the run-up of U.S. mortgage debt during the last decade was funded. One important element was the sale of commercial paper that helped fund the purchase of some mortgage-related securities. Here I comment on why it was hard for some institutions to resist buying that commercial paper.
Follow the money
What happened to housing and financial markets over the last decade? To find out, follow the money.
Improving the fuel efficiency of U.S. light vehicles
I recently highlighted grounds for pessimism about the ease with which the U.S. could significantly change our oil consumption habits. Here I highlight some interesting new research by U.C. Davis economics professor Christopher Knittel which offers a more optimistic assessment.
Consumers get more pessimistic
The Reuters/Michigan index of consumer sentiment tumbled four points in April. Could just be measurement noise, or could be that something new is pressing down on consumers.