Running a little behind, so I decided today to reprint something I wrote 4 years ago as an excuse to call attention to some charts I still think are pretty interesting.
Category Archives: here and there
Links for 2011-10-23
Dave Altig and Patrick Higgins at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have raised their estimate of 2011:Q3 real GDP growth from 1.4% as of the beginning of September to 3.2% currently.
Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge Inc. announced plans to build a new pipeline from oversupplied Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast (hat tip: Jim Brown). I reviewed the great need for such a pipeline here, and this may be one way to get one built without having to wait forever for White House approval.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams reviews lessons from the last 3 years on the effects of unconventional monetary policy.
Michael Plante and Mine Yucel at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas review the evidence on the role of speculation in recent oil price moves.
Sargent and Sims
I’m a little late getting to this (by standards of cyberspace time anyway), but I wanted to comment on Monday’s announcement about the Nobel prize in economics.
Links for 2011-09-28
Social anthropologist David Graeber claims that barter economies never operate the way that economists assume.
James Kahn and Robert Rich worry that the U.S. has entered a phase of weak productivity growth.
Matt O’Brien
(hat tip: Mark Thoma) wonders why Republicans have become so hostile towards the Federal Reserve.
Hal Cole and Lee Ohanian debate Paul Krugman on the recovery from the Great Depression.
Links for 2011-09-06
Swiss National Bank announces it will buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities to achieve a target exchange rate. That’s quantitative easing with real meat on it.
Jim Brown on the importance of immediately opening up Alaska to more oil exploration and development.
Felix Salmon on why it’s depressing to see S&P giving AAA rating to a new security structured from subprime loans.
Felix Salmon again on how to solve the problems with the U.S. Post Office.
K.W. Regan on IBM’s Jeopardy champion (hat tip: Tyler Cowen).
Justin Wolfers reflects on his time in Washington DC (hat tip again to Tyler Cowen).
Journal of Statistical Software on estimating state-space models.
Relevant economics
University of Oregon economics professor Mark Thoma has an interesting article on the direction economics should be taking.
Links for 2011-06-29
Some quick links to recent analyses of health care costs, oil price shocks, and forecasting commodity prices.
Links for 2011-06-13
Some items I found interesting:
- Tyler Cowen outlines what I see as the responsible approach to the U.S. federal fiscal challenges: slow the growth of government spending.
- Some undergraduates at Rutgers University have developed a nice site to track economic indicators. And Bill McBride has an invaluable summary of which ones really matter.
- From the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston: Oil and the Macroeconomy in a Changing World: A Conference Summary.
- The Office of Personnel Management on shifting costs of Postal Service retirement funding to U.S. taxpayers.
- And Glenn Reynolds warns beware of bimbots.
2011 Econbrowser NCAA tournament challenge winner
Congratulations to (1) the University of Connecticut, 2011 NCAA men’s basketball champion, and (2) A. Chaves, who, in part because he or she successfully predicted (1), is winner of this year’s world-famous Econbrowser NCAA tournament challenge.
And condolences to most of the rest of us, who messed up pretty badly with our predictions. Not that I wouldn’t have made pretty much the same calls if the same teams were to play again.
Update on Japan
A few quick links:
- Toll of dead and missing is in the tens of thousands, with hundreds of thousands still in temporary shelters.
- Dangerous reactor situation persists as evacuation area broadened.
- Automakers face supply problems.
- Impressive photos of rapid road repair.
- Hideaki Akaiwa: a hero’s epic told in a modern style.