From NYT, “Size of Spill in Gulf of Mexico Is Larger Than Thought”, the extent of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico:
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
Employment Bounceback?
Dobridge, Hooper and Slok in “Jobless Recovery III Seems Unlikely” Global Economic Perspectives (April 21, 2010) [not online]:
The sluggish performance of payroll employment and
jobless claims in recent months despite well-above-trend
growth in output has raised the specter of another jobless
recovery. …
China and Latin America: Re-evaluating Macro Linkages
Last week, I attended a conference organized by Eduardo Fernandez-Arias and Alessandro Rebucci at the Inter-American Development Bank. One of the panels focused on the impact of China on Latin America’s economy.
Non-Economic Question of the Day: Should I Take My (US) Passport If I Visit Arizona?
Reading this factsheet pertaining to SB 1070, I think the answer is yes.
The Administration’s February Forecast Compared to Current Expectations
Back in February, some observers were characterizing the Administration’s forecast as too rosy. Now, the Administration forecast is looking positively pessimistic by comparison to private sector forecasters, at least over 2010.
Data Based Assessment of the Unemployment Insurance Impact on UE
From the San Francisco Fed’s Valletta and Kuang (h/t RTE/Derby):
Although economists have shown that extended availability of UI benefits will increase unemployment duration, the effect in the latest downturn appears quite small compared with other determinants of the unemployment rate. Our analyses suggest that extended UI benefits account for about 0.4 percentage point of the nearly 6 percentage point increase in the national unemployment rate over the past few years. It is not surprising that the disincentive effects of UI would loom small in the midst of the most severe labor market downturn since the Great Depression.
Joe Lawler and Joe Stiglitz Agree!
Or, on economic costs versus budget costs
From American Spectator, Joe Lawler writes:
“The cost … to the budget, though, is not the only relevant cost.”
Recent estimates of Chinese Yuan misalignment
Yin-Wong Cheung, Eiji Fujii and I have just written a chapter for a VoxEU book The US-Sino Currency Dispute edited by Simon Evenett (link to blog post). After discussing the various approaches to measuring misalignment, we summarize the most recent estimates of CNY undervaluation.
Averting the Consumption Disaster
The CEA has just released the newest quarterly report on the impact of the ARRA. In addition to tabulating the impacts on output and employment, there’s a special section by Chris Carroll (one of the leading authorities on modeling consumption behavior — I used to teach his papers in my PhD macro course), which concludes in the absence of the ARRA “…consumer spending would likely have continued to fall” (which is consistent with my post from a couple days ago).
IMF WEO: “Transitioning out of Sustained CA Surpluses”
[Corrections made 11am Pacific]
“Getting the Balance Right: Transitioning Out of Sustained Current Account Surpluses” by Abdul Abiad, Daniel Leigh and Marco Terrones:
This chapter examines the experiences of economies
that ended large, sustained current account surpluses
through policy actions such as exchange rate appreciation
or macroeconomic stimulus. It subjects these
historical episodes to statistical analysis and provides a
narrative account of five specific transitions, examining
economic performance and identifying key factors that
explain various growth outcomes.