Michael Dueker is a senior portfolio strategist at Russell Investments and formerly was an assistant vice president in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He has been doing some very interesting economic research recently in developing what he calls a Qual VAR model for predicting recessions. We are pleased that he agreed to share some of the current implications of that research with Econbrowser readers, subject to the disclaimer that the content is the responsibility of the
author and does not represent official positions of Russell Investments
and does not constitute investment advice.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
January auto sales
Detroit continues its slow bleed.
More murk in the crystal ball
Some good news, some bad, in the economic data released yesterday.
A “San Diego-style” recession
Alan Gin is an economics professor at the University of San Diego (a separate institution from the University of California at San Diego, where I teach). His San Diego index of leading economic indicators is sending a pretty strong negative signal.
Fed rate cut
Today the Federal Reserve announced a further 50-basis-point cut in its target for the fed funds interest rate, bringing it down to 3.0% for a total reduction in January of 125 basis points. How long should it take before this has an effect on the economy?
Weak GDP report
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today that U.S. real GDP grew at a 0.6% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2007, a weaker report than many of us had been expecting.
Betting on recession
There was also some interesting action on the Intrade betting exchange this week.
Another day, another dollar
It was a fun day to be a macroeconomist, don’t you think?
The Fed makes its move
The Federal Reserve announced today it was lowering its target for the fed funds rate 75 basis points, from its previous value of 4.25% to a new value of 3.5%.
The case against fiscal stimulus
Everybody else seemed to hear Bernanke say he was in favor of fiscal stimulus as one approach to our economic problems. But I instead heard him articulate very intelligently the potential pitfalls of the strategy.