“I don’t like all of this work that we’re putting into the economy and then I see rates going up.”
and a tweet on Saturday:
Tightening now hurts all that we have done.
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
A Primer on Tracking the State Economies
In a new paper, Ryan LeCloux (Legislative Reference Bureau) and I discuss the challenges to assessing the economic outlook at the state level. We examine the various indicators available to track macroeconomic indicators at the higher than annual frequency. We find that quarterly GDP at the state level is correlated with different macroeconomic indicators for different states. Hence, tracking the economic activity of each state accurately might require focus on different variables.
US Trade Policy Uncertainty in These Times
Just in case you were wondering.
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Stephen Moore Lies and Lies and Lies (and Hence Belongs in the Trump NEC)
On CNN today, as Stephen Moore was trying to spin the point that presidents have always tried to pressure the Fed, he made the assertion (maybe not verbatim):
Obama never got us close to 3% growth…
Measured Economic Policy Uncertainty, Post-Fed Critique, Pre-$500 billion China Tariffs, Pre-Trump/Playboy Tapes
I expect a downward revision tomorrow for today’s value, but tomorrow’s value?
Thinking about Macro Data and Revisions and Recessions: A Cautionary Tale
Indications are that a week from tomorrow, we will receive a very strong report on GDP growth (Jim will have his recession probabilities assessment soon after the release). (GS at 4.1%, MacroAdv at 5.0%, NY Fed at 2.8%, FRB Atlanta NowGDP at 4.5%.) At the same time, we are seeing a flattening of the yield curve. I urge observers to not take as “hard data” the advance release of any macro data as firm. Here is a cautionary tale.
Return of the Log (Function)
Ed Hanson writes, after plotting the data:
The graph shows, in general, Minnesota’s increasing gap of per capita income over Wisconsin since at least 1970. It is not just since 2011 that this trend began.
This observation is right in a way — wrong in a deeper, more economically interesting, way. Investigation highlights the usefulness of the log function.
Per Capita GDP in MN, WI over 30 Years
Reader Ed Hanson accuses me of misleading people about the growth rate of per capita income in Minnesota and Wisconsin, by omitting results on trends in long samples, and focussing on short samples. Personally, I don’t recall plotting per capita income, but rather per capita income (which differs from GDP), but here for the interested reader is a graph of the relevant data, for the longest span readily available.
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The Ten year-Seven Year Treasury Spread
Some see this as inversion imminent.
Term Spreads as of Noon Today
Trending down.
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