With August nominal consumption coming in above consensus (m/m +0.4% vs. +0.2% Bloomberg), and consumption and personal income continuing to rise, we have the following picture of some key indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
Ukrainian Territorial Gains in September
From JohnH on 9/2/2022, in response to anonymous’s query: “how’s the crossing of the dneipr and reconquesta of kherson going?”
Natixis: Impact on Chinese GDP Growth via Consumption Reduction
Garcia-Herrero and Xu, “China’s Covid Restrictions May Slash More than Two Percentage Points of Growth in 2022,” (Natixis, Sep 27, 2022):
[Assuming] Covid-related mobility restrictions in 03 to remain similar for 04, the overall reduction in China’s GDP growth in 2022 could be 2.3 percentage points.
Guest Contribution: “Has the Fed Pivoted Too Far?”
Today, we present a guest post written by David Papell and Ruxandra Prodan, Professor and Instructional Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Houston.
Weekly Economic Activity through 9/24
As measured by NY Fed WEI, OECD Weekly Tracker, and Baumeister, Leiva-Leon and Sims WECI.
GDP Level Up, GDO Down and Trending Sideways
The annual benchmark revision (release) made substantial changes to the level of reported GDP — but not to the growth rate in 2022H1– while GDO is revised slightly down as GDI is revised downward. Final sales to private domestic purchasers, a measure of domestic demand, revised up and rises.
UK Economic Policy Uncertainty Spikes
As I wrote yesterday, “tomorrow is another day”.
Figure 1: UK Economic Policy Uncertainty (blue), and centered 7 day moving average (red). ECRI defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: policyuncertainty.com, ECRI and author’s calculations.
UK Measured Economic Policy Uncertainty in Context
In some ways, policy uncertainty — at least as measured using text — is not as bad as I would’ve thought. Here’s the Baker-Bloom-Davis index:
Yield Curve Inversions in the UK
Recession coming? Or is it already here? Here’s a picture of the UK yield curve as of today, a month ago and 6 months ago:
Reserve Currency Status Is No Vaccination against Recklessness – UK Edition
…although it helps.
I never thought an advanced economy government could pursue stupider policies than that implemented under the Trump administration. Consider me corrected on this point – case in point, the United Kingdom in 2022.