Category Archives: California

Is California in Recession? (Part IX)

August employment figures are out. Time to re-evaluate this mid-December Political Calculations assertion that California was in recession.

Going by these [household survey based labor market] measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. [text as accessed on 12/27/2017]

The release provides an opportunity to revisit this question (the 2018Q1 state GDP figures are discussed here). It’s (still) unlikely that a recession occurred.

Continue reading →

Is California in Recession? (Part VIII)

Back in mid-December, Political Calculations asked if California was in recession.

Going by these [household survey based labor market] measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. [text as accessed on 12/27/2017]

The release of the 2018Q1 state GDP figures provides an opportunity to revisit this question — it’s likely no recession occurred.

Continue reading →

Is California in Recession (Part VII)

Back in mid-December, Political Calculations asked if California was in recession.

Going by these [household survey based labor market] measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. [text as accessed on 12/27/2017]

The release of May state-level employment and coincident index figures provides an opportunity to revisit this question — it’s likely no recession occurred.

First, the coincident indicators for California and US:
Continue reading →

Arthur Laffer’s RSPS Economic Outlook Ranking and Subsequent State GDP Growth

Using today’s state level GDP release, we can assess how highly ranked states like Kansas performed subsequently, as compared to poorly ranked states like California.


Figure 1: Log California real GDP (blue), Kansas (red), and US (black), normalized to 2011Q1=0. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. [##] denote Rich States, Poor States 2013 Economic Outlook rankings for 2013 (based on 2012 data). Source: BEA, May 2018, NBER, ALEC, and author’s calculations.

Continue reading →

California in Recession? (Part III)

Back in mid-December, Political Calculations asked if California was in recession. Data released by the Philadelphia Fed suggests the answer is no.


Figure 1: Coincident index for California (blue), and implied index value for June 2018 using leading index (light blue arrow, blue dot) against log scale. NBER defined national recession dates shaded gray. Red arrow at date of Political Calculations post. Source: Philadelphia Fed [1], [2], and author’s calculations.

Continue reading →