Here’s how I’m hoping this might work out.
Category Archives: deficits
Jeff Frankel: “The Federal Government Races to the Cliff”
At the NBER meetings, I have been asking around what will happen if the Federal government defaults, and Treasurys go down a notch in ratings. Keep in mind pension funds and financial institutions are constrained to hold at least some AAA rated securities. What happens if those securities are downgraded; should we expect a smooth, re-balancing of portfolios worldwide?
Jeff Frankel dissects why we are in this situation, using fable (well, a movie fable):
Debt ceiling options
As Congress and the President continue to wrangle over raising the debt ceiling, more of us are wondering, what would happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised? To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be Plan A.
Ron Paul’s debt default proposal
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is apparently proposing that the U.S. Treasury simply refuse to pay interest and principal on the $1.6 trillion in Treasury securities currently owned by the Federal Reserve. Dean Baker, Greg Mankiw,
Steve Williamson, and
Stephen Gandel all seem to think it’s not a totally crazy idea. Here’s what I think they’re missing.
Random Views on U.S. Default
(With updates)
From WSJ Washington Wire:
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said the market impact of failing to raise the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2 could become severe by late July.
And Policymakers Are Proposing to Withdraw Stimulus?
Guest Contribution: The Fiscal Stimulus in 2009-11
Trade Openness, Fiscal Space and Exchange Rate Adjustment
Today, we are fortunate to have as guest contributors Joshua Aizenman of UC Santa Cruz and Yothin Jinjarak of the School of Oriental and African Studies of London University.
This post draws upon Aizenman and Jinjarak (2011).
A game of chicken
Making a political game out of the debt ceiling is playing with fire.
In Order to Know Where You Are Going…
…you need to know how you got where you are. From the abstract to a working paper by myself, Barry Eichengreen and Hiro Ito, entitled A Forensic Analysis of Global Imbalances:
We re-examine the determinants of current account balances applying updated data to the framework based on Chinn and Ito (2007). …
Debt ceiling politics
Here’s a link to an interview with a local TV station.