From Ed (We Are Not in a Recession) Lazear and Keith Hennessey, “Bush ended financial crisis before Obama took office — three important truths about 2008”, FoxNews (9/16):
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
Ironies Abound: Destroying the Village to Save It
I find it strange that self-avowed patriotic Americans are willing to shut down the government, breach the debt ceiling, and throw the world economy into tumult, when those same self-avowed patriots have been asserting that policy uncertainty has slowed down the economy. Let’s stipulate for the sake of argument policy uncertainty has been an important determinant of slow growth [0]; when do we see the spikes in policy uncertainty?
Some Selected State and National Employment Indicators
The BLS released today estimates for August state employment. In Figure 1 below, I show US, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California private nonfarm payroll employment figures, normalized to January 2011, when the governors of the three states took office.
GDP Growth and the Change in the Cyclically Adjusted Budget Balance
Countries that increase the structural budget balance the most have experienced the slowest growth. Here is the scatter plot for the 2008-2012 period.
Lehman Plus Five
US, Euro area, and UK GDP Trajectories Compared, and the Expansionary Fiscal Contraction Hypothesis
Risk Appetite, Interest Rate Parity, Integration, Crises, Currency Wars, and theTrilemma
These are the topics covered in West Coast Workshop on International Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics, October 11th, organized by Michael Hutchison (UCSC) and Helen Popper (SCU).
CNY on the Rise
The preliminary results from the BIS triennial survey for 2013 are out. There are a lot of interesting results, but one I want to flag is that the Chinese yuan is increasingly used in forex transactions.
Observations on the Labor Market
One of these is not like the others – local government employment stabilizes, but state does not – structural unemployment decreases – Obamacare does not cause the rise in part time employment
A Tale of Two Fiscal Policies, Continued
In a previous post, I compared economic outcomes in two states that implemented contrasting fiscal policies: California, which surged ahead while raising taxes and cutting spending, and Wisconsin, which lagged far behind as it slashed spending on education, and cut taxes. Latest estimates of current economic activity, and forecasted economic activity six months out, indicate continued lagging performance for Wisconsin.
Quantitative and Credit Easing vs. Forward Guidance
Domestic Impacts and Cross-Border Impacts Contrasted