Yesterday, Greg Mankiw discussed the trilemma in international finance, noting that countries can trade off between capital mobility, monetary policy autonomy, and exchange rate stability, but cannot fully all three of those objectives at a given time. In this post, Hiro Ito cites work with Joshua Aizenman and myself, in which we quantified how countries have traded off these objectives over time (paper here).
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
Michael Rosenberg: Is the Euro Embarking on a New Long-Term Cycle of Currency Weakness?
From Bloomberg’s Mike Rosenberg, in FX Market Insights (June 28):
The euro is now two years into what might be another
long-term downtrend. …
May Global Surface Mean Temp Anomalies
I await June figures with bated breath. From NOAA:
Still in Search of Inflationary Expectations
Given concerns about large budget deficits and quantitative easing feeding into inflation even as actual inflation was falling, I wondered what standard measures indicated. This follows up on the same question I posed in May of last year.
A Specter is Haunting America
…The specter of fiscal mindlessness
I’m just back from two weeks in Europe. During that time, growth indicators have signaled a slowdown [0] in the midst of a massive negative output gap [1], while a substantial bloc in the Congress refuses to think in a sensible fashion about fiscal policy. This point is most forcefully illustrated by the inability of the Senate to move forward on extending unemployment insurance. (It makes me wonder if some were asking the question, “Are there no poorhouses?”)
China’s Rebalancing
From Arthur Kroeber, in China Economic Quarterly “Economic rebalancing —
Twin peaks: fiscal and financial reform” [not online]:
Views on Rebalancing the Global economy
VoxEU has released a primer on rebalancing the global economy here, edited by Stijn Claessens, Simon J Evenett and Bernard Hoekman. For those interested in the political feasibility of rebalancing, Jeff Frieden holds forth on “The political economy of rebalancing”. The table of contents for the entire book is here.
OECD Factbook
The OECD Factbook is now online, and hooked up to all sorts of online datasets and interactive maps/graphs.
Some Ruminations on Trade Flows, Trade Costs and Trends
One of the persistently challenges I consistently face in trying to model US import and export flows is the sensitivity of the results to the inclusion of time trends. Time trends are bothersome because they are, in one sense, a measure of our ignorance. That’s a worry as we consider the feasibility of global rebalancing [0] [1] [2] [3].
Is Spain Next?
Today, we’re fortunate to have Mark Copelovitch, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin, as a Guest Contributor.
First off, let me thank Menzie for the opportunity to “pinch hit” here at Econbrowser. It’s a pleasure to be here. I am Menzie’s colleague in the La Follette School of Public Affairs here at Wisconsin, and my primary area of expertise is the politics of international finance.