Overshadowed by the euphoria over
Bernanke’s testimony last week was news that the Federal Reserve Board’s
index of industrial production fell
one-half percent in January.
Category Archives: recession
The market reads Bernanke’s lips
The Fed Chair speaks, and the market jumps. But why?
New takes on the New Deal
There’s a really interesting Econoblog this week featuring Arnold Kling and Brad DeLong. Unlike the slugfest between
Menzie and
Kash, there are actually some profound disagreements between these two.
What would Milton do?
What with next Monday apparently having been declared Milton Friedman Day, I thought I might try to contribute to the festivities with some thoughts on how recent U.S. monetary policy might be evaluated from a Friedmanesque perspective.
The New Deal and the Great Depression
Like the folks writing at Mahalanobis, Marginal Revolution and Free Exchange, I was rather surprised to see Berkeley Professor Brad DeLong claim, “A normal person would not argue that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.” Since Brad is a smart guy, I think it might be time for me to acknowledge my freakiness.
Recession probability
Yet another tool to try to assess the probability of a recession.
December auto sales
Auto sales data released today look just great, as long as your name is Toyota.
What will the Fed do next?
Probably nothing.
The term premium and reduced volatility
I earlier discussed the role that foreign government purchases of U.S. Treasury securities may have played in reducing long-term bond yields. A study by Fed researchers Glenn Rudebusch, Eric Swanson, and
Tao Wu that is soon to appear in
Monetary and Economic Studies explores an alternative explanation based on reduced volatility of underlying macroeconomic and financial fundamentals.
Employment remains solid
This week’s employment data do not show an economy in recession.