By Menzie Chinn
As informative as the nonfarm payroll employment numbers were, of even more interest to me are the revisions. Figure 1 depicts payroll employment estimates from the January (blue), February (red) and March (green) releases.
Author Archives: Menzie Chinn
IMF World Economic Outlook Analytic Chapters Released
Several chapters of the IMF’s semi-annual research document are now available online, in advance of the IMF-Bank meetings.
The Yuan on the Move: An Update
And a bit on the IMF’s revised forecast for the US.
From Reuters, “U.S.’s Paulson praises China on currency progress”:
Maybe not so nonsensical after all
How far will house prices fall? Implications from the latest WSJ survey.
“Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World”
From Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World, March 25.
Satellite imagery from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder reveals that a 13,680 square kilometer (5,282 square mile) ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.
Recoupling, Monetary Policy Divergence, and the Dollar
At the risk of losing my audience by skipping over the the record housing price decline, and an outsized drop in the consumer confidence index, I’m going to focus on what seems like old news (but is being reflected in current news on the dollar), namely the OECD reduction in growth forecasts for the G-7 economies. The euro area economy is slated to do better than the US economy in 2008H1, but that’s not saying much.
Kicking the Can down the Road
De-Globalization? Musing about Oil Prices and Trade Costs
This post recaps a post from over a year and a half ago, in light of surging oil prices. Most attention is rightly focused on the supply side effects of the increase in the real price of oil. However, another facet is the impact on transportation costs, and hence the tradability of goods across borders.
Iraq Burn Rate > $12 billion per month?
That’s what’s implied by the graphic in today’s NYT article, based on CBO data.
Limits to Expenditure Switching? Monetary Policy, Intervention, and Tradability
Currently, net exports are one of the few bright spots in the US economy. As Krugman points out, this is the one area where monetary policy is proving effective: by driving down the value of the dollar, expenditure switching is being induced.