Chinn-Ito Index Updated to 2011
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
Guest Contribution: “Fairness and Sustainability for Cyprus”
Today, we have a guest contribution from Marios Zachariadis, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Cyprus.
Wisconsin in March: Nonfarm payroll employment declines
Private nonfarm payroll employment growth near zero, and the level is about 70 thousand below the path implied by Governor Walker’s commitment to increase private sector employment by 250 thousand by 2015M01.
No Time for Austerity: US Edition
With unemployment at 7.6% and an output gap of around 6%, it’s (still) not the time to embark on front-loaded spending cuts in the United States.
“The Great Divergence of Policies”
From Box 1.1 (by M. Ayhan Kose, Prakash Loungani,
and Marco E. Terrones) in the newly released World Economic Outlook:
Gold Prices Falling
Was their rise caused by “bad policies”? And why are they falling now?
“Rethinking Macro Policy II: First Steps and Early Lessons”
That’s the title of an IMF conference taking place starting tomorrow (April 16-17). The program is below, and the live webcast will be available here (and follows up on a 2011 conference on the same subject).
Five years into the crisis, the contours of the macroeconomic policy of the future are only slowly coming into focus. From macroeconomic to financial stability, policy makers have realized that they have to watch many targets. They have also realized that they have potentially many more instruments at their disposal, from macro prudential tools to unconventional monetary policy. But how to map instruments to targets remains very much a work in progress. — Olivier Blanchard
Some New Estimates of Japanese Trade Elasticities
One component of Abenomics is a vigorously expansionary monetary policy. The yen has depreciated substantially as a consequence — as of February, about 20% relative to 2012Q3. One question is how much of an expenditure switching effect this depreciation will induce. In order to examine this question, I have done some quick and dirty econometrics, summarized in this paper.
Currency Wars vs. Currency Spillovers
From Steven Englander (Citibank), “Currency war, BoJ Style” (4/7, not online):
Japan is likely to be labeled as a currency warrior by major Asian trading partners. However, the new BoJ policy has been endorsed by the Fed and IMF and is very G7 compliant, so the BoJ has cover for its policy agenda, despite the aggressiveness of its balance sheet expansion and negative implications for JPY.
Guest Contribution: “Should We Care about Sticky Prices?”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Yuriy Gorodnichenko (UC Berkeley) and Michael Weber (UC Berkeley). It is based upon their paper entitled “Are Sticky Prices Costly? Evidence From The Stock Market”.