Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Luis Brandão-Marques, Senior Economist, Gaston Gelos, Chief of the Global Financial Stability Analysis Division, and Natalia Melgar, Economist, all at the IMF. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management.
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
Symmetric Application of Dynamic Scoring
Republicans are keen to sacrifice CBO’s role as impartial arbiter of fiscal measures on the altar of “dynamic scoring” of tax measures.[0] But there is no economic reason for restricting this approach to only tax measures.
“Asia and Global Production Networks—Implications for Trade, Incomes and Economic Vulnerability”
That’s the title of a book edited by Benno Ferrarini (ADB) and David Hummels (Purdue).
And in Russia
Government borrowing costs are spiking.
How Come I Don’t Still Hear about the “Worst Recovery Ever”?
Just wondering — where is Ed Lazear when you need him?
Accelerated Employment Growth, Little Inflationary Pressure
Nonfarm payroll employment clocks in substantially above consensus (321,000 vs Bloomberg: mean 230,000, range 140,000 to 275,000), solidifying trend growth. Previous months’ estimates revised upward. Wages continue to rise, but labor costs in productivity adjusted terms are stable.
Keynesian Cassandras? The Sequester Re-Assessed
Professor Tyler Cowen’s anti-Keynesian manifesto has been ably discussed by Professor Simon Wren-Lewis at Mainly Macro. I thought what merited additional attention is Professor Cowen’s first assertion:
1. Keynesians predicted disaster following the American fiscal sequester, and the pace of the recovery accelerated.
A Farewell to Arms?
No more military Keynesianism after G.W. Bush?
Avoiding Lost Decades: European Edition
From Liz Alderman in the NY Times today:
Germany and France Aim to Avert a ‘Lost Decade’
The economy ministers of France and Germany called on Thursday for urgent overhauls and a series of investments in both countries to help prevent them and the eurozone from falling into a stagnation trap.
If Output Is Near Potential, Why Is Inflation so Low?
There is a lot of discussion of how economic slack is fast disappearing, and I expect a lot of push on this view, given continued rapid growth in GDP as reported in today’s second release for 2014Q3. This view seems counter to (1) the CBO estimate of potential GDP and (2) the slow pace of inflation. My suggestion is that there remains a substantial amount of slack out there.