Torsten Slok has a whole set of interesting pictures, two of which are particularly relevant in thinking about the US fiscal situation as compared to other advanced countries.
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
The Heritage Foundation Confuses Me
The Heritage Foundation critiques the CEA assessment of the stimulus. In WebMemo #2799, Dr. Campbell writes:
The CEA’s method, in brief, compared a statistical forecast of the economy based on historical patterns (no stimulus) with the actual economic results in 2009. On this basis, it claims that there are 2 million more jobs in the economy than otherwise would have been the case. The CEA then concludes that this difference between this statistical forecast and the actual results were the effect of the stimulus.
…
Letting the EGTRRA and JGTRRA Provisions Expire
Or, what would happen if we “Let Bush Be Bush”. Recall the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were written to expire, for the most part, in FY2011. The impact of extending those cuts (along with some others) is strikingly depicted in this Figure from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (h/t Brad Delong).
Federal Debt: More Time Series
Augmenting my previous post, here are two additional graphs, motivated respectively by comments by Econbrowser readers Eric Swanson (for Figure 1) and Cedric Regula and tim kemper (for Figure 2).
The January Employment Situation: Four Pictures
Downward revision in the level of nonfarm payroll (NFP) employment; stabilization in employment measures (establishment, household, research series); aggregate weekly hours trend up.
Doubling Exports
The Administration has committed itself to doubling exports in five years, via the National Export Initiative. Much of the journalistic coverage has focused on the regulatory, trade-credit financing, and export promotion measures being considered [0]. I wanted to take a macro oriented approach to the viewing the plausibility of this goal. Let me address this issue from a variety of perspectives.
Forecasts Compared
How does the Administration’s forecast of the levels of real GDP compare against those of the CBO, and the Blue Chip and Wall Street Journal surveys?
Federal Debt: The Time Series
Here is a graph of Federal debt held by the public, as a share of GDP, 1990-09.
“No rate hikes likely in 2010…”
Despite the somewhat startling conclusion (at least to me), the implications are pretty straightforwardly arrive at. From Michael Rosenberg, Financial Conditions Watch (Bloomberg, Jan. 27, 2010) (link added 1/29 8am) [not online]:
Fed Funds Rate Outlook — A Taylor Rule Perspective
With U.S. real GDP growth moving back into positive
territory in the second half of 2009 following four consecutive
quarters of negative growth (see Figure 1), the
economic forecasting community appears to be increasingly
optimistic about the U.S. economy’s growth prospects
for 2010-11….
G-7 Consumption Behavior and Global Rebalancing
Or, the end of the consumption follows a random walk view.
Following up this post last week on Lee et al., here is another analysis of consumption behavior, but this one is cross-country. From the abstract to “After the Crisis: Lower Consumption Growth but Narrower Global Imbalances?” by Ashoka Mody and Franziska Ohnsorge: