UK PMI collapses. Term spread moves toward inversion.
Category Archives: economic growth
Drumpfarmageddon, Tabulated
Heretofore, I’ve approached in a piecemeal manner the assessment of the impact of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, building a really, really great wall, a final solution for the presence of undocumented immigrants, and the imposition a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. Moody’s Mark Zandi et al. have now done the hard work of trying to figure out what the macro impacts would be to implementing Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Kansas: Zero 12 Month Employment Growth
Or, “ouch!”
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A financial hockey stick
Yesterday I was at the 31st annual NBER conference on macroeconomics (along with fellow blogger Mark Thoma). Among the many interesting contributions was development of an extended data set on 25 different indicators for 17 advanced economies going back to 1870 by Jorda, Schularick and Taylor (2016).
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Visualizing Textbook and Alternative Interpretations of the Friedman Analysis of the Sanders Economic Plan
Now that the dust has (kind of) settled on exactly what is and is not in Gerald Friedman’s interpretation of the Sanders economic plan, I thought it useful to contrast the textbook (at least the one I use, Olivier Blanchard/David Johnson‘s) view of how a fiscal stimulus works, versus that in which a one-time spending increase yields a permanent increase in output, in a graphical format.
Economic Slack, Again
I keep on seeing comparisons between the Great Depression and the Great Recession (e.g., [1]), and how a big fiscal stimulus could result in a big and sustained jump in output. I think it useful to visually compare the extent of downturn in both cases.
What Is the Assumed Output Gap in the Friedman Projections?
Or, “Is current output really 18% below potential output?”
The Counter-cyclical Stabilization Policies of the Democratic Presidential Candidates
In this post, I assess how the candidates would implement macroeconomic stabilization policy, given the big reform packages proposed by the candidates, in particular those by Senator Sanders, are highly unlikely to be passed by a fully or partly Republican Congress. On the other hand, a downturn in the next four years is much more plausible; hence, knowing the candidates’ views on macro stabilization policy is arguably more relevant.
Employment and GDP Growth
Yesterday’s NYT noted “U.S. Growth and Employment Data Tell Different Stories”:
Measured by traditional yardsticks for growth, like gross domestic product, the American economy definitely looks weak. View it through the prism of hiring and employment, however, and the economy seems surprisingly strong.
IMF: “Subdued Demand, Diminished Prospects”
From today’s updated World Economic Outlook update:
Risks to the global outlook remain tilted to the downside and relate to ongoing adjustments in the global economy: a generalized slowdown in emerging market economies, China’s rebalancing, lower commodity prices, and the gradual exit from extraordinarily accommodative monetary conditions in the United States. If these key challenges are not successfully managed, global growth could be derailed.